Innovative Usage Thread

[Travis B.]

I wonder to which extent this is an innovative usage. I don't think I've seen a comparative phrasing before.

From the Introduction to the book Bad Jews: A History of American Jewish Politics and Identities by Emily Tamkin:

The book was written during the global coronavirus pandemic, and so was mostly reported out by phone or over WhatsApp or Zoom from my home in Washington, DC, [...] Parts were also reported in New York City, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem

I'm asking about the formula that goes something like "the book was reported", used to mean more or less "the research for the book was done" or "the book was written". Is that usual or unusual?

That is an interesting usage, one I really hadn't seen before myself.

[jcb]

IMD "got" and "gotten" have slightly different meanings: "got" merely implies possesion, "gotten" emphasizes acquisition. E.g.

"I've got the money" = I have it, it's available
"I've gotten the money" = I've acquired it, recently enough that it's news

I agree. There's "get", the dynamic verb that means "acquire", whose past tense is "got", and past participle is "gotten". And there's "got", the static verb that means "have", which lacks a past tense, and whose past participle is also "got". The present tense of the latter is obviously derived from the past tense of the former.

[Travis B.]

IMD "got" and "gotten" have slightly different meanings: "got" merely implies possesion, "gotten" emphasizes acquisition. E.g.

"I've got the money" = I have it, it's available
"I've gotten the money" = I've acquired it, recently enough that it's news

I agree. There's "get", the dynamic verb that means "acquire", whose past tense is "got", and past participle is "gotten". And there's "got", the static verb that means "have", which lacks a past tense, and whose past participle is also "got". The present tense of the latter is obviously derived from the past tense of the former.

For me, the latter verb is even more defective than it is for you, because for me the static verb does not even have a morphological present, and the semantic present of it is formed with the morphosyntactic present perfect.

[jcb]

IMD "got" and "gotten" have slightly different meanings: "got" merely implies possesion, "gotten" emphasizes acquisition. E.g.

"I've got the money" = I have it, it's available
"I've gotten the money" = I've acquired it, recently enough that it's news

I agree. There's "get", the dynamic verb that means "acquire", whose past tense is "got", and past participle is "gotten". And there's "got", the static verb that means "have", which lacks a past tense, and whose past participle is also "got". The present tense of the latter is obviously derived from the past tense of the former.

For me, the latter verb is even more defective than it is for you, because for me the static verb does not even have a morphological present, and the semantic present of it is formed with the morphosyntactic present perfect.

The static verb is defective for me too! It lacks a third person singular form.
- GOOD: I/you/we/they got twenty bucks.
- BAD: He/she/it got twenty bucks.

[Travis B.]

I agree. There's "get", the dynamic verb that means "acquire", whose past tense is "got", and past participle is "gotten". And there's "got", the static verb that means "have", which lacks a past tense, and whose past participle is also "got". The present tense of the latter is obviously derived from the past tense of the former.

For me, the latter verb is even more defective than it is for you, because for me the static verb does not even have a morphological present, and the semantic present of it is formed with the morphosyntactic present perfect.

The static verb is defective for me too! It lacks a third person singular form.
- GOOD: I/you/we/they got twenty bucks.
- BAD: He/she/it got twenty bucks.

See, to me "I/you/we/they got twenty bucks" means "I/you/we/they acquired twenty bucks" not "I/you/we/they have twenty bucks". I say the latter one would use the present perfect, i.e. "I/you/he/she/it/we/you guys/they've got twenty bucks".

[jcb]

For me, the latter verb is even more defective than it is for you, because for me the static verb does not even have a morphological present, and the semantic present of it is formed with the morphosyntactic present perfect.

The static verb is defective for me too! It lacks a third person singular form.
- GOOD: I/you/we/they got twenty bucks.
- BAD: He/she/it got twenty bucks.

See, to me "I/you/we/they got twenty bucks" means "I/you/we/they acquired twenty bucks" not "I/you/we/they have twenty bucks". I say the latter one would use the present perfect, i.e. "I/you/he/she/it/we/you guys/they've got twenty bucks".

To me, "I/you/we/they got twenty bucks" can mean either the past tense of the dynamic sense ("acquired"), or the present tense of the static sense ("have"). And yes, I can use the present perfect to also mean roughly the static sense.

[Travis B.]

The static verb is defective for me too! It lacks a third person singular form.
- GOOD: I/you/we/they got twenty bucks.
- BAD: He/she/it got twenty bucks.

See, to me "I/you/we/they got twenty bucks" means "I/you/we/they acquired twenty bucks" not "I/you/we/they have twenty bucks". I say the latter one would use the present perfect, i.e. "I/you/he/she/it/we/you guys/they've got twenty bucks".

To me, "I/you/we/they got twenty bucks" can mean either the past tense of the dynamic sense ("acquired"), or the present tense of the static sense ("have"). And yes, I can use the present perfect to also mean roughly the static sense.

I know your usage of the present of the static sense to mean "have", but it feels a bit, well, foreign to me, as it is not quite native to the specific English variety I grew up with even though it is definitely found in other English varieties.

[Man in Space]

In conversation with bradrn recently, I used the form “remound” for “reminded”. It was the natural choice, or so it felt at the time, and then he asked me if that was my usual form (which it’s not).

[jcb]

See, to me "I/you/we/they got twenty bucks" means "I/you/we/they acquired twenty bucks" not "I/you/we/they have twenty bucks". I say the latter one would use the present perfect, i.e. "I/you/he/she/it/we/you guys/they've got twenty bucks".

To me, "I/you/we/they got twenty bucks" can mean either the past tense of the dynamic sense ("acquired"), or the present tense of the static sense ("have"). And yes, I can use the present perfect to also mean roughly the static sense.

I know your usage of the present of the static sense to mean "have", but it feels a bit, well, foreign to me, as it is not quite native to the specific English variety I grew up with even though it is definitely found in other English varieties.

For me, it's informal.

[Raphael]

Looks like I came up with a kind of innovative usage of my own, without noticing it. In the comments for Bret Devereaux's latest post - https://acoup.blog/2026/07/24/collectio ... -cohesion/ - I posted (excerpt):

But I think that on one or two occasions in my own life, I noticed other people around me getting nervous, and as a result, I myself actually got *calmer*. My armchair psychoanalysis take on the matter is that in those situations, some part of my brain thought something like, “OK, at least I#m not the *only one* who’s nervous here”, and that, in turn, had a calming and perhaps even confidence-boosting effect on me.

To which another commenter going by "Gwytherin" responded, quite rightly:

Really funny thing about the word “armchair” here – usually “armchair profession” is used in a derogatory (or self-deprecating) way to say “someone who did not had contact with the real thing”. But unlike a general, a captain, or a farmer real psychoanalysts ARE supposed to sit in armchair to do their work.

[zompist]

The static verb is defective for me too! It lacks a third person singular form.
- GOOD: I/you/we/they got twenty bucks.
- BAD: He/she/it got twenty bucks.

[...] To me, "I/you/we/they got twenty bucks" can mean either the past tense of the dynamic sense ("acquired"), or the present tense of the static sense ("have"). And yes, I can use the present perfect to also mean roughly the static sense.

I'm wary of analyses that turn an irregularity into a whole new paradigm of inflection. The simplest origin for the "defective verb" is that it's the present perfect of "got", with the auxiliary omitted. Omitting /v/ is already common— "I've been to Des Moines" is likely to appear in actual speech as "I been to Des Moines". If I say "I've talked about it before" really quickly, the /v/ turns into something like an [h].

Semantically, it's no surprise at all if the sense "have acquired" is extended to mean "presently have".

Some reanalysis may be going on if you find "He got $20" to be bad. Kids (and speakers of some dialects) often take this as an ordinary verb so they happily say "He gots $20". Maybe you got rapped on the knuckles for saying that and so avoid it. Or maybe the discrepancy is because the /z/ of "he's/she's got" is harder to elide.

These are just initial thoughts, not a final analysis.

[bradrn]

I'm wary of analyses that turn an irregularity into a whole new paradigm of inflection. The simplest origin for the "defective verb" is that it's the present perfect of "got", with the auxiliary omitted. Omitting /v/ is already common— "I've been to Des Moines" is likely to appear in actual speech as "I been to Des Moines". If I say "I've talked about it before" really quickly, the /v/ turns into something like an [h].

I get the impression that British English doesn’t really have that, though? I’m not a native speaker of any British variety, of course, but I struggle to imagine hearing ‘I been to Des Moines’ from British speakers.

[Travis B.]

I should note that it is common in the case of the word have to drop the final /v/. I even do this when it is the main verb, where I will often pronounce have as /hæ/ [hɛː] or even /æ/ [ɛː] in everyday speech.

[jcb]

The static verb is defective for me too! It lacks a third person singular form.
- GOOD: I/you/we/they got twenty bucks.
- BAD: He/she/it got twenty bucks.

[...] To me, "I/you/we/they got twenty bucks" can mean either the past tense of the dynamic sense ("acquired"), or the present tense of the static sense ("have"). And yes, I can use the present perfect to also mean roughly the static sense.

I'm wary of analyses that turn an irregularity into a whole new paradigm of inflection. The simplest origin for the "defective verb" is that it's the present perfect of "got", with the auxiliary omitted. Omitting /v/ is already common— "I've been to Des Moines" is likely to appear in actual speech as "I been to Des Moines". If I say "I've talked about it before" really quickly, the /v/ turns into something like an [h].

Semantically, it's no surprise at all if the sense "have acquired" is extended to mean "presently have".

Some reanalysis may be going on if you find "He got $20" to be bad. Kids (and speakers of some dialects) often take this as an ordinary verb so they happily say "He gots $20". Maybe you got rapped on the knuckles for saying that and so avoid it. Or maybe the discrepancy is because the /z/ of "he's/she's got" is harder to elide.

These are just initial thoughts, not a final analysis.

(1) I remember that my younger sister used to say "X gots Y" when she was little (and got corrected), so reanalysis is certainly happening in my dialect.
(2) /z/ being harder to elide doesn't explain why (1) is happening.
(3) I don't think it's just elision, because carefully saying "I got twenty bucks." sounds valid (as a static verb), albeit casual, but "I been to Des Moines." sounds invalid.

[zompist]

(1) I remember that my younger sister used to say "X gots Y" when she was little (and got corrected), so reanalysis is certainly happening in my dialect.
(2) /z/ being harder to elide doesn't explain why (1) is happening.
(3) I don't think it's just elision, because carefully saying "I got twenty bucks." sounds valid (as a static verb), albeit casual, but "I been to Des Moines." sounds invalid.

"I got twenty bucks" is valid, as the past tense of "get".

If "got" is a new verb, what's its past tense? Is it also "got"? Can you really say the following, as a narrative of past events?

We wanted to go to the movies, there was a movie we wanted to see. But we got only $10.

I do accept that kids reanalyze what they hear, thus the well-attested "gots". So it is possible you re-reanalyzed your childish regular verb "got" into a defective verb with no 3s (and maybe no past).

[jcb]

(1) I remember that my younger sister used to say "X gots Y" when she was little (and got corrected), so reanalysis is certainly happening in my dialect.
(2) /z/ being harder to elide doesn't explain why (1) is happening.
(3) I don't think it's just elision, because carefully saying "I got twenty bucks." sounds valid (as a static verb), albeit casual, but "I been to Des Moines." sounds invalid.

"I got twenty bucks" is valid, as the past tense of "get".

If "got" is a new verb, what's its past tense? Is it also "got"? Can you really say the following, as a narrative of past events?

We wanted to go to the movies, there was a movie we wanted to see. But we got only $10.

I do accept that kids reanalyze what they hear, thus the well-attested "gots". So it is possible you re-reanalyzed your childish regular verb "got" into a defective verb with no 3s (and maybe no past).

It doesn't have a past tense. "had" works there, but neither "got" nor "gotted" does.

[bradrn]

So it is possible you re-reanalyzed your childish regular verb "got" into a defective verb with no 3s (and maybe no past).

I don’t think this is specific to jcb: present-tense ‘got’ is pretty common in British English. (Maybe English English specifically, because I’m not sure whether I’ve heard it here in Scotland.)

[Richard W]

(1) I remember that my younger sister used to say "X gots Y" when she was little (and got corrected), so reanalysis is certainly happening in my dialect.
(2) /z/ being harder to elide doesn't explain why (1) is happening.
(3) I don't think it's just elision, because carefully saying "I got twenty bucks." sounds valid (as a static verb), albeit casual, but "I been to Des Moines." sounds invalid.

Are speech varieties that lack 3s ///z/// relevant? They're common in England, and were also established in the US at one point. There are also (or were) varieties where ///z/// and ///∅/// contrast in the indicative present, rather like the standard English indicative v. subjunctive contrast, but with a different semantic difference, and possibly not restricted to the 3s. (I'm not sure how You pays your money and you takes your choice fits in here.)

[Travis B.]

So it is possible you re-reanalyzed your childish regular verb "got" into a defective verb with no 3s (and maybe no past).

I don’t think this is specific to jcb: present-tense ‘got’ is pretty common in British English. (Maybe English English specifically, because I’m not sure whether I’ve heard it here in Scotland.)

I too am familiar with it as something that happens in informal speech in English varieties other than my own.

[zompist]

So it is possible you re-reanalyzed your childish regular verb "got" into a defective verb with no 3s (and maybe no past).

I don’t think this is specific to jcb: present-tense ‘got’ is pretty common in British English. (Maybe English English specifically, because I’m not sure whether I’ve heard it here in Scotland.)

How do you know it's present tense?