# Beat vs Beaten?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beat-vs-beaten/333942>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 3, 2005, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beat-vs-beaten/333942 "2005-12-03T21:28:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![OliverTwistofLime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/b487fb/32.png) [@OliverTwistofLime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverTwistofLime)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beat-vs-beaten/333942/1 "2005-12-03T21:28:15Z")

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Many years ago (far more than I care to remember), I was taught in English class that if a team lost to another team, it was beaten.

Now, it seems as if all I hear is “they got beat” or “He/she was beat by…”

In short, has the word beat replaced the word beaten in general word useage?

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**Author:** ![calvin10](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@calvin10](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calvin10)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beat-vs-beaten/333942/2 "2005-12-03T21:43:02Z")

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“They got beat” sounds like American slang (I speak English english, no offence intended). “They were beaten by. . .” sounds correct to me, but sports pages speak their own type of language. If enough people use words in a particular manner for long enough then they will become be recognised as correct, and in a colloquial case it is already correct, but it is grammatically incorrect right now.

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**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\
**Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beat-vs-beaten/333942/3 "2005-12-03T23:17:53Z")

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I’m with you guys! “We got beat” makes me cringe. Even though I expected some decorum in my classroom, I had rather have heard, “We got our asses kicked.”

Just this week I read the words of a minister who claimed that stores were being **brow beat** into saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” (Double cringing and gnashing of teeth)

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