'Grandaunt' and 'Got'

 

Just when I think I’ve heard every dinky language complaint imaginable, something lands in my e-mail inbox to prove me wrong.

Not long ago, it was an an e-mail from a reader who had used the term “great aunt” and – get this – was corrected by a family member who said the correct term was “grandaunt.”

That would have been rude enough had she bothered to look it up first to confirm she was right. But she didn’t. Because if she had checked Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate dictionary, she would have seen that grandaunt and great aunt are synonyms.

Also recently, I got an e-mail about the word “got”:

There are certain words or phrases that drive me crazy. As an example, when someone uses the word "got"; as in "you got money". This instead of you have money. ... I learned from my son that you almost never need the word "got". 

I could have brought up a couple of my own peeves, including using “or” in place of “and,” double spacing between sentences, and periods placed after closing quotation marks.

Instead I pointed out that “got” is indispensable as the past tense of “get” (“Yes, I got your e-mail”) and that it’s also acceptable both as a past participle instead of “gotten” (“I have got into trouble before with this one”) and as an idiomatic though wordy addition to “have” (“I have a lot of pennies,” “I have got a lot of pennies”).

 

 

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