"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

[wivern.livejournal.com]

Teaching that it's wrong bothers me, though.

But the language is always changing and what is 'right' or 'wrong' changes all the time. I don't think it's workth being bothered about.

On second thougts it occurs to me that we are both seeing pretty much the same phenomena from exactly the opposite sides... becuase it rather bothers me that we seem to be all to frequently being asked to accept Americanisation as 'right' and our previous usage as not so good.

(As an aside I suspect this is what irkes some non Americans about the change in language in the books... in general we have to find out way through AE in American books... and I prefer it that way, variety is a good thing.)

So I suppose yes, we both have reason to be bothered. *g* And maybe it really isn't worth it from either side.

The intersting thing about 'gotten' is that I would tend to structure sentances entirely differently so the word wouldn't be appropriate at all, in any form. It isn't just a simple 'you use gotten we use got' issue a lot of the time - and no, I can't think of an example just at the moment. *g*

And, while it is coming into use a bit here in Aus, it is still pretty unusual to hear 'gotten' here.

Okay, stopping now.

[silentauror.livejournal.com]

I'm not American either, and being told that Americanisms are correct bothers me just as much as being told that Britishisms are correct. It's not that anything is "right" or "wrong"; it's just what's in vogue for the language in your particular place and time.

[wivern.livejournal.com]

True. Speaking for Aus, it's so diverse that it would be hard to say what was in vogue except perhaps that diversity is, and frequently I'm not aware which usage comes from where in the world.

Which makes it damned hard for me to write fic in almost any universe except perhaps Star Wars.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Just butting in here to LOL at the Star Wars thing. Having started in the SW fandom, where there's no really no such thing as a single "correct" language to write fic in, I'm still struggling with the language issue in HP. For me, authentic-sounding language is important, but there are SO many other things that are more immediately important, like the plot making sense, or the characterizations being consistent, or the story just generally being interesting.

I guess if all people can find wrong with your fic is a handful of words, that must mean you did a decent job on the rest of it. ;-)

[wivern.livejournal.com]

Hee. Hey apart from it being your journal and all... feel free to but in any time. *g*

I have such fond memories of TPM fandom, I sort of wish I still had the urge to write there.

It boggles me when I how far this stuff goes in HP fandom, or anywhere else but it does seem to be HP mostly at the moment. Trying to make your characters true to canon seems to me to be all you can really be expected to do. Going further than that seems to me to be more a stylistic decision and trying to get the language 'perfect' is probably doomed to failure in any case.

I guess if all people can find wrong with your fic is a handful of words, that must mean you did a decent job on the rest of it.

That is so true. And there are always pedants among us. I know I work with one, thank goodness she is aware of it and can laugh at herself... sometimes.

I'm with you all the way, and may I say that you are about the last person I'd expect to have anyone to get snappy about your fic. It is always clearly well thought out and polished, as well as all the other good things.