As a non native speaker, I wonder if the division between forgot/forgotten is the same as between got/gotten. Is forgotten more common in American English? Because I’m always confused what form to use, or I have forgotten what I learned in school, respectively.
I might use it exactly because it sounds odd. Language is a tool and once you own the tool, it’s yours to use any way you like.
Slicing bread with a bandsaw might not be the safest and most effective way to do the job but it certainly gets people to perk up and pay attention.
I like both graham crackers and digestives, but the main difference is in the crunch: graham crackers snap like a twig (and are great for dunking), while digestives have that nice crumbly thing going on. Once in a blue moon, I treat myself to those chocolate-covered digestives—mm mmm good!
Neither one is too sweet, which is a major win in my book. American cookies? Way too sugary for me. If they dialed down the sugar by half, my taste buds and my pancreas would throw a party! That’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Which brings me to something I’ve been wondering about: the word “guy”.
All my life, I’ve assumed that Americans say “guy”, while the British say “chap” or “bloke”. And yet, in recent years I’ve noticed, watching British TV, that the word “guy” has completely taken over, and the more British (to my ears) alternatives have more or less disappeared. Did the British always call people “guys”? I’m assuming that it’s British originally (probably from Guy Fawkes), but I don’t know if it remained popular in its home country. Is it another Americanism that modern Brits have re-adopted?
That sounds weird to me too. (New York.) It’s the “had got” that sounds wrong.
Funny I was actually just writing an email earlier today where I used the word “gotten” and didn’t even realize til after when I noticed it because of this thread.