I've been meaning to write about this for a while. It is something that irks me every time I see it and it has to do with American English and English.
OK so there are spelling differences and things are pronounced differently on either side of the Atlantic, fare enough, language is constantly evolving but please, please American journalists don't put Americanisms into the mouths of the British.
Here's a recent example, it is a quote from an interview Daniel Radcliffe gave to the New York Post:
"We'll have a massive party. We haven't had any wrap parties, which I think is sinful. We haven't gotten around to organizing. We'll probably go out on holiday and do all the stuff the insurance hasn't covered like rock climbing and hand gliding."
My problem is the word "gotten". The British don't say "gotten" we say "got". It's isn't a word we use and I am 99.9% sure that Daniel Radcliffe didn't say it.
It pops up frequently in interviews of the British by American's and I think the main reason it hits a nerve it because it makes the person being interviewed sound American. Now there is nothing wrong with sounding American per se but to imply that it came out of the mouth of someone who is English, and generally speaks good English, just rankles.
Interestingly it appears that the journalist has taken the
decision to quote Radcliffe verbatim in every other respect as the quote has a
very conversational style with the obvious missing words not inserted in square parentheses, so why then
'translate' "got" to "gotten"?
It also implies that American readers are too stupid to realise that if an English person says "got" it means "gotten" and I really don't believe that to be the case.