Americans with weird past participles: you too?

Todd   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 18:54 GMT
So everyone knows that Americans say "gotten" and the English say "got" as a past participle. But what about other, often nonstandard, past participles. What about "snuck" as opposed to "sneaked".

I'm fascinated by the seemingly spontaneous occurance of "strong" irregular past partiples used "incorrectly" by myself and other americans.

I often find myself saying "squoze" instead of squeezed, and I hear it in other Americans. Is it just a new aberation or a vestige of an older germanic irregularity?
I find myself saying "I'd boughten it before",
"He renned a couple of laps around the track"
I can't think of any more good examples, but I'm always tripping up on weird past participles. Do I get them from my parents, who are midwesterners of Dutch descent? Or is it just a kind of rhyming association.
(Maybe I've just been living out of the US for too long)
D   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:05 GMT
Of course Americans use both got and gotten, and distinguish their meanings.

I've got $10. (I have $10 right now in my possession)

I have gotten $10. (I received it in the past, and may not have it now)
Tom K.   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:05 GMT
Maybe you have been out of the US for too long. "Renned"? "Boughten"? I've never heard either of those before. I do however say "snuck" a lot. Someone once told me that it was supposed to be "sneaked" but I thought, everyone else says "snuck" so who cares?

When we are children we often come up with incorrect forms like "tooken" and "brang" but eventually grow out of most of these. As adults we usually confuse sang/sung, drank/drunk, etc. I know them correctly now, only because I learned their corresponding forms in German. To this day, however, I still don't know the correct past participle for "wake." What is it? "Woken"? "Waken"? "Wakened"? I just avoid ever having to use it. Of course, the foreigners who learn these verbs in school no doubt have no trouble with them.
Travis   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:09 GMT
I've heard of "boughten", even though I've never used it, and never heard it in use. On the other hand, I've never heard of "renned" at all. For "run", the past participle is also just "run", and the simple past is "run", at least for me. As for "wake", the past participle is "woken", and the simple past is "woke", at least here.
Travis   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:11 GMT
Ack, I mean the simple past of "run" is "ran".
Elaine   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:14 GMT
What the heck is "squoze" and "renned"? Sorrry Todd, but I have never heard these words before.
Jo   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:18 GMT
Altho Dutch has more irregular verbs than English, to run, just by chance is regular in Dutch.
From Dutch it would be:
to ren renned renned ( rennen, rende, gerend)
Deborah   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:29 GMT
I thought "snuck" was a form that people used only as a joke.

"Boughten" was (and possibly still is, somewhere) used as an adjective to indicate that an item was bought in a store, not homemade ("boughten bread"). I think it was colloquial, not standard, American English.
Deborah   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:34 GMT
By the way, I'm familiar with the word "boughten" because of having read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books ("Little House on the Prairie," etc.) when I was a kid.

I just looked up "boughten" and found that its use was chiefly in the northern U.S.
Travis   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:44 GMT
Nope, "snuck" is a real past participle, at least here, even if it is a "new" one (that is, not one descended from Old English, but rather one that's somehow gotten created and which stuck somewhere since then).
Chamonix   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:49 GMT
Dear All,

I've never heard of these weird Past Participles some of you are talking about. Maybe are were misused or used in certain areas of the US, unless was said by my boss whose grammar is really weird :)

I heard mouses instead of mice .
Travis   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:52 GMT
Chamonix, the plural "mouses" is used at times when referring to the device "a mouse" rather than the animal, which is always used with the plural "mice".
Chamonix   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 19:54 GMT
D,

"I've got $10. (I have $10 right now in my possession)

I have gotten $10. (I received it in the past, and may not have it now) ".

Never heard of the last one formulation.
In spoken English "I've got" is used more often than the secon one, but in written English I use "gotten".
D   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 20:38 GMT
Maybe the difference in AE between got/gotten is clearer when negated:

I haven't got AIDS anymore.
I haven't gotten AIDS yet.

Many AE speakers view this as an important distinction.
Look at, e.g., http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0144.html
or http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/gotten.html
Travis   Thursday, March 17, 2005, 21:22 GMT
I agree with D here; "got" and "gotten" do not mean the same thing when used as past participles in American English. "Got" means to have, "gotten" means to receive or take.