got

Received.

I remember in primary school the teacher saying " we never use the word 'got' its an ugly word. We also learned that when writing to never begin a sentence with the word ' And' .

Shelflife

I remember in primary school the teacher saying " we never use the word 'got' its an ugly word. We also learned that when writing to never begin a sentence with the word ' And' .

You are right that Primary School teachers did tell children not to start sentences with, as I remember it, "and, but or because" but this is not a rule if grammar but a rule if thumb, generally to stop overuse of these words. The "adult" rules are:

You may begin a sentence with and or but when it improves clarity or emphasis.

You may begin a sentence with because as long as the sentence includes an independent clause.

In formal writing, do all three deliberately and sparingly.

Also from primary school,
We never start a sentence with 'because', because 'because' is a joining word.

Perhaps we are aiming to use the word gotten as used in the US.

Whatever we are aiming to use we need to get past Primary School!

Thanks DaisyAnne. Still learning, I will remember that! My prinary school has a lot to answer for !!

Had a terrible time with a proofreader who changed most of my goes into gotten. Removed every one.

Is this related to "get" as in a restaurant "can I get a..."

Shelflife

Thanks DaisyAnne. Still learning, I will remember that! My prinary school has a lot to answer for !!

So does mine! I still cringe at the mixing-up of less and fewer and if I dare to say "can I" in the wrong place there is a voice in my head saying "We all know that you can DaisyAnne but but whether you may or not is the question"!

Shelflife

I remember in primary school the teacher saying " we never use the word 'got' its an ugly word. We also learned that when writing to never begin a sentence with the word ' And' .

IIRC a lot of sentences in the King James Bible begin with ‘and’.

I forget his exact words, but Winston Churchill evidently didn’t hold with the ‘no prepositions at the end of a sentence’ rule.

“This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put.” 😂

I don’t mind when I hear, ‘Have you got?’ rather than, ‘Do you have?’ but I scratch my head if the reply is, ‘I do.’

‘Do got?’ What’s that when it’s at home? 🤔

I think most of these rules are made to be broken, and I used to lecture in English !anguage.

I admit to an irrational prejudice against ‘gotten’, though. I know Shakespeare used it and it’s a valid grammatical form, but I can’t shake off a feeling that it’s a semi-literate Americanism.

Apparently, when we think Americans have got it wrong they are often closer to old Engish than we are - which is really annoying!

I still feel rebellious when beginning a sentence with And or But.

My 13 yr old DGS uses get and got all the time. It's what they say. It may hurt our ears but we are on the way out along with our language, sadly.

I do start with "And" sometimes in casual chat.
And here on Gransnet.
It's usually for emphasis.
Or clarification.
😊

Gotten was good enough for our ancestors and got is a perfectly good word in my view.
If I said ‘when we got married’ you’d know that I was talking about the day itself or around that time.
‘When we were married’ isn’t so clear on the timeline.
Most people now say ‘Have you got your gloves’ rather than ‘Do you have your gloves’. Language evolves.

What is the past tense of dive ? Several times I have seen 'dove' mainly in American fiction. Doesn't sit right with me I would say dived.
I am also concerned about people who diffuse a difficult situation.

Sometimes I start a sentence with and, if I feel like it, even though I seem to remember an English teacher telling the class not to start a sentence with a conjunction. But I do like to go grammatically off piste with a bit of rebellion as you mentioned up thread Grammaretto. In the same vein, I'll use me and another instead of another and I.

We were always told not to use the word nice in English because it's a bit nondescript, well who cares sometimes things are just nice, not fantastic, amazing or awesome, a most inappropriate word to describe something that is merely pleasing, nice is often appropriate or even naice depending where one's accent is lined up.

I was taught that usually one could find another word to use instead of "got" - they were married last Saturday, instead of they got married and that doing so made for a more interesting use of the English language.

I am inclined to follow the rule when writing English and in certain phrases that were drummed into me as a child, when speaking.

I find it natural to say "I was given such a lovely present", or "I had such a nice surprise yesterday" but no doubt others find this stilted.

I must admit that I am guilty of saying 'Janie got married last week' Instead of 'Janie was married'

my pet hate is starting a sentence with word basically.

nexus63

my pet hate is starting a sentence with word basically.

One of my sons went through a phase of starting sentences with basically, I'll admit to find it exasperating and kept telling him it's a completely superfluous word when prefixing a sentence, just say what you've got to say without it. "Basically" it's so over used these days but I guess it has supplanted "actually" or "well actually" which was often another precursor to a sentence.

This thread has me remembering my primary school teacher being very strict with grammar. 'And' , 'But', and 'So' are conjunctions (I think) and should only be used as a link in a sentence. The teacher would also go mad if she heard anyone say "I was sat there ..." or "I' was stood there ..." instead of 'sitting' or "standing". It has made me very aware of bad grammar although these days it doesn't seem to matter much. As school children though we 'got' the message. Or should that be we 'received' the message?