# What's correct, "he had GOT some" or "he had GOTTEN some"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [March 25, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-correct-he-had-got-some-or-he-had-gotten-some/533769 "2010-03-25T17:25:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![IMcRout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dec6dc/32.png) [@IMcRout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IMcRout)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-correct-he-had-got-some-or-he-had-gotten-some/533769/21 "2010-04-01T13:52:32Z")
Take a look at the “translations” of Harry Potter books into American English - yes I was astonished, too when I downloaded a sample chapter from the US publishers; it even had a different title (Sorcerer vs Philosopher) - and you will find that they have transformed (almost ?) every ‘got’ into ‘gotten’. So, apparently this phenomenon is no longer confined to speech or informal writing. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-correct-he-had-got-some-or-he-had-gotten-some/533769/22 "2010-04-01T19:21:28Z")
The “philosopher” -\> “sorcerer” change is not a case of a difference between British and American dialect, but of the American publisher’s assumption that American kids are stupider than British kids. In the movie, they had to shoot British and American versions of every shot in which the altered word was spoken. ---
**Author:** ![Croquantes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19adc/32.png) [@Croquantes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Croquantes)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-correct-he-had-got-some-or-he-had-gotten-some/533769/23 "2010-04-06T11:11:18Z")
Sheesh. It’s not that they think that american kids are more stupid! Americans and Brits simply use different dialects, and use different expressions. All they were trying to do was make the film/books more appealing to their respective markets. That being said, neither dialect is appealing. I prefer my Canadian dialect, thank you. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-correct-he-had-got-some-or-he-had-gotten-some/533769/24 "2010-04-06T11:23:29Z")
> [@Croquantes](#): > > Americans and Brits simply use different dialects, and use different expressions. All they were trying to do was make the film/books more appealing to their respective markets. This doesn’t make sense. A “philosopher’s stone” is a historical alchemist’s myth. There’s no such thing as a “sorcerer’s stone” - and unless I’m mistaken, there isn’t any dialect in which the two terms are synonymous. It’s not like most British kids would recognise what the original phrase referenced either… ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-correct-he-had-got-some-or-he-had-gotten-some/533769/25 "2010-04-06T15:34:16Z")
> [@Croquantes](#): > > Sheesh. It’s not that they think that american kids are more stupid! On the contrary, that is _exactly_ what they think. > [@](#): > > Americans and Brits simply use different dialects, and use different expressions. No, “philosopher’s stone” is not a question of dialect at all. It is purely a matter of assuming that American children today are markedly stupider than either British children today, or (as I can say from my own knowledge) the American children of fifty years ago. (On the other hand, the American edition was still jam-packed with actual British dialect, so much so that I wondered that they bothered to muck about with it at all.) ---
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-correct-he-had-got-some-or-he-had-gotten-some/533769/26 "2010-04-07T12:34:12Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > This doesn’t make sense. A “philosopher’s stone” is a historical alchemist’s myth. There’s no such thing as a “sorcerer’s stone” - and unless I’m mistaken, there isn’t any dialect in which the two terms are synonymous. > > It’s not like most British kids would recognise what the original phrase referenced either… It had been my understanding that the word _philosopher_ had a meaning in British English separate from its modern meaning (that of one who considers the nature of thought and being) that was more similar to the modern meaning of the word _sorcerer_. The word was replaced for the American versions, I had thought, because that sense of the word _philosopher_ was not known in the U.S. Was this understanding mistaken? Powers &8^] ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-correct-he-had-got-some-or-he-had-gotten-some/533769/27 "2010-04-07T22:36:38Z")
I say again: this has nothing to do with any difference between American and British English. In _both_ dialects, what C. S. Lewis called the _dangerous sense_ of “philosopher” is “metaphysician”, while on both sides of the Atlantic, the less ignorant know that it also has other meanings. I’ll bet anything that this ultimately turned on some damned “age-appropriate vocabulary” list. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-correct-he-had-got-some-or-he-had-gotten-some/533769.md?page=1)