"Gotten" in the US editions of the HP books

[emmagrant01]

In a private conversation about Brit-picking, a friend of mine told me that she'd seen the word "gotten" in her (American) copy of HPSS. I have the PDFs of the US versions of all the books, so I thought I'd do a search on "gotten" and see what I found.

It turns out that there are 20 occurrences of the word "gotten" in SS, two of them in dialogue (one said by Ron and one by Hermione). I also have the British editions of the books, and in them each of these is "got". So this was clearly a change made by the American editors, possibly because it made the text "sound right" to American readers.

I extracted all of the examples in SS and they are posted below. I included chapter numbers but not page numbers, since those vary so much.

20 occurrences in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone:

It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. [Ch 2]

The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it. [Ch 2]

Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. [Ch 2]

On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. [Ch 2]

Harry recognized him at once from the card he'd gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. [Ch 7]

Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there. [Ch 7]

The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher's look -- a feeling that he didn't like Harry at all. [Ch 7]

Just then, the mail arrived. Harry had gotten used to this by now, but it had given him a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps. [Ch 8]

At the start-of-term banquet, Harry had gotten the idea that Professor Snape disliked him. By the end of the first Potions lesson, he knew he'd been wrong. [Ch 8]

At breakfast on Thursday she bored them all stupid with flying tips she'd gotten out of a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages. [Ch 9]

"We should have gotten more than ten points," Ron grumbled. [Ch 10]

He didn't know how he'd have gotten through all his homework without her, what with all the last-minute Quidditch practice Wood was making them do. [Ch 11]

"I've heard of those," he said in a hushed voice, dropping the box of Every Flavor Beans he'd gotten from Hermione. "If that's what I think it is -- they're really rare, and really valuable." [Ch 12]

Percy Weasley stuck his head through the door, looking disapproving. He had clearly gotten halfway through unwrapping his presents as he, too, carried a lumpy sweater over his arm, which Fred seized. [Ch 12]

Then, during one particularly wet and muddy practice session, Wood gave the team a bit of bad news. He'd just gotten very angry with the Weasleys, who kept dive-bombing each other and pretending to fall off their brooms. [Ch 13]

Hermione jumped to her feet. She hadn't looked so excited since they'd gotten back the marks for their very first piece of homework. [Ch 13]

Little did Harry know that Ron and Hermione had been secretly practicing the Leg-Locker Curse. They'd gotten the idea from Malfoy using it on Neville, and were ready to use it on Snape if he showed any sign of wanting to hurt Harry. [Ch 13]

"What am I studying for? Are you crazy? You realize we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They're very important, I should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's gotten into me...." [Ch 14]

Filch was already there -- and so was Malfoy. Harry had also forgotten that Malfoy had gotten a detention, too. [Ch 15]

It winked and put the Stone back in its pocket -- and as it did so, Harry felt something heavy drop into his real pocket. Somehow -- incredibly -- he'd gotten the Stone. [Ch 17]

The number of occurrences was lower in the other books, but doesn't really seem to follow a pattern:

COS: 0 occurrences
POA: 9 occurrences (3 in dialogue)
GOF: 11 occurrences (3 in dialogue)
OOTP: 0 occurrences
HBP: 1 occurrence

Interesting. :-)

ETA: Thanks to dorrie6 for this interesting link: American Pie: American/British English Translation, and to atdelphi for the link to this list of all the differences between PS (UK) and SS(US), including many things I didn't know were different. :-P

Comments

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

But not everyone is trying to write an "authentically British" story. I do not believe that fanfic is under any obligation to meet certain readers' criteria. A story can still be a rousing good tale and a) not have any magic in it, b) not be "authentically British", c) not have certain characters who feature in the novels, d) not adhere strictly to canon, etc.

Furiosity, your claim that Britpicking counts as research -- that's not the focus of everyone's story. You may prefer stories that sound British, but that is merely a statement of personal taste. It has nothing at all to do with the quality of any given fic. It just means certain authors have chosen something else to focus on.

What do I look for in a story? A good tale that is legible. I don't even have to have perfect spelling and grammar, because this is fanfic, it is amateur - which means we do it for love, not money - and I have no desire whatsoever for it to adhere to so-called "professional" standards. If it did, then the vast majority of fanfic writers would be excluded.

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

But not everyone is trying to write an "authentically British" story. I do not believe that fanfic is under any obligation to meet certain readers' criteria. A story can still be a rousing good tale and a) not have any magic in it, b) not be "authentically British", c) not have certain characters who feature in the novels, d) not adhere strictly to canon, etc.

I agree with this, actually. I didn't mean to imply that I thought it was necessary for a fanfic to be authentic to its setting and such. I only meant to say that, whether necessary or not, those details are entirely different from issues of grammar and spelling, and it frustrates me that they seem to always be lumped together as one and the same.

[furiosity.livejournal.com]

First off, I'm not sure what your goal is with pointing out to me that my comment expresses merely my opinion. I knew that already, and said as much in my comment. Multiple times. If you need to be reassured despite the "to me"s and "I think"s and "I consider" and "IMO": yes, jedirita, the comment I posted above contains my opinion; at no point does it state or attempt to imply that "this is the truth" or "these are the facts". Except when I say that British people speak British English. Which they, well, do.

I am of the opinion that, everything else (grammar, spelling, actual storytelling, etc) being equal, a poorly researched story is simply not as good as a story whose author has done his/her research properly, whether that research is regarding local styles of speech or a national landmark. At no point did I say that research must be a focus of anyone's story. So, I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to argue against, other than to tell me that my opinion is wrong. Which it might well be, but I like it anyway. :)