Have you forgotten? Or just forgot? A “Pondian Dispute”. (The “Pond” is the Atlantic Ocean.)
Years ago, when I and the internet were much younger, I was in an internet group with other romance writers. Back then, youngsters, there was no Web, just networks of servers and users connected through landline phone modems and FTP file transfers– AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, and so on. Genie was the corporate network for General Electric, and expanded access to non-employees about 1990. Anyway, back then, Genie was definitely the cool hangout for romance and science fiction writers, so much that many in the core groups are still in contact.
Genie Romance Exchange (Romex) was where the Regency romance writers hung out. We had files of research information on the culture and history, and long debates about essential issues like, “Did young ladies really have dance cards to list partners at a ball?”
I’ve Never Forgot (or Forgotten) Jo’s Advice
The Queen of the Romex Regency writers was definitely Jo Beverley (1947-2016). She was a sensitive and insightful writer. And, by benefit of British birth and a degree in English history, Jo became my arbiter of what was comme il faut and bang up to the mark and de rigueur in a Regency romance. Decades later, I still consider her advice when I choose terms and details for my novels.
However, there is one ruling of hers that I have both heeded and resisted ever since: “Got.” I am an American, and for whatever reason (like, uh, logic) we Americans use “gotten” as the past participle of the verb “get”.
The British, Jo informed me, do not.
That is, they use the past tense “got” as the verb form used with the perfect tenses (I have got, she had forgot, he will have forgot). “Gotten” was a… barbaric Americanism.
The Queen had spoken (or spoke? No, this “no -en allowed” apparently applied only to “got” and other “t” ending verbs like “bit”), and I tried to obey. I would do a search and replace for those pesky words and change to the Jo-approved British term. This is what is known as a “Pondian dispute,” the Pond being the Atlantic Ocean, and our two countries, as Shaw allegedly said, “are separated by a common language.” (Canadians, what say you? I think they skew North American.)
Barbaric Americans Unite
It’s 30 years later and Jo is no longer with us. And I miss her and her calm good counsel. Recently though, I was doing a new edition of my book Poetic Justice and my friend Cynthia Furlong Reynolds was the proofreader. Of course, she flagged every single “I have forgot” and “She had got.” After all, we’re both Americans.
I was genuinely conflicted. I didn’t know what was best — to follow Jo’s sage. advice, or follow that radical Cynthia. She reminded me that I am writing mostly for an American audience, and they’ll think that’s a mistake.
(Interestingly, “gotten” actually was an accepted form in British English until the 18th Century. Shakespeare used both forms. There are in fact many verbs which have two ways with the perfect tenses—dived/dove, bit/bitten… But for some reason, the Brits stopped using “gotten” just about the time the United States was rebelling. Separated by an ocean from the King’s English, Americans kept the “gotten” form while the Brits got all radical and streamlined with their “I have got” and “he has bit.” So… are we Yanks the stodgy pedants after all?)
So here I am, with fingers about to Control-F (find), and I’m debating. Have my characters “forgot” or “forgotten”? And I have decided that 250 years ago, we fought a war against our British overlords, and one of the great benefits of that is, we can decide on our own independently to use the past participle. And so I have not forgotten Jo’s wise advice, and I don’t think it was misbegotten, but I have gotten back my independence, and I’m gonna go ahead and be a barbaric American for the rest of my days.
I was reminded of Paul McCartney’s account of writing songs in the row house he shared with his father, who was also a musician. When he sang, “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said his father objected that “yeah” was one of those Americanisms, and shouldn’t it be, “She loves you, Yes, yes, yes”?
I guess we know who won that argument, and I rest my case. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1 thought on “Have you forgotten? Or just forgot? A “Pondian Dispute”. (The “Pond” is the Atlantic Ocean.)”
When I was in high school I sorta dated a young man of the Mormon persuasion. His church sponsored a formal dance for teen once a month and we had DANCE CARDS. And we learned a lot of ballroom ettiquette left over from the previous century. And even casual conversations had to use proper grammar.
I don’t remember the got/gotten controversy but we were supposed to use complete sentences without modern slang. “The Beatles are so cooooool,” was not allowed. No squeals. But we didn’t have to curtsey to the chaperones, just greet them politely and thank them at the end.