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this is a question most suited to British speakers! I am aware of the difference between the British and the American "get" conjugation (got-gotten). Now, I have come across the sentence "My cough has gotten worse." This makes sense for US speakers. Do British speakers then say "My cough has got worse"? I have never consciously seen this use of "to get + adjective". I know that this can be avoided by saying "has become", but I am interested in this specific phenomenon. Is "has/have got + adjective" as a present perfect grammatically correct and used?

Thanks in advance!

apaderno
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Shiro
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  • If I see this question one more time, I will scream. Have got/have are two forms of the verb to have,with Brits using got and AmE speakers using gotten for the present perfect. Also, get rich, get tired, get moody, etc., etc. ad nauseam are absolutely everywhere in all varieties of English. This question belongs on the other site: ELL. :) – Lambie Dec 31 '19 at 19:00
  • @Lambie As you clearly think that this is a duplicate Q., then please flag it as such (or propose closing the Q.) and indicate which Q. or Qs you think it duplicates. As a minimum, please refer to questioner to the relevant Qs instead of having a rant at him/her. – TrevorD Dec 31 '19 at 19:38
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    No, it's more complicated than that. The various meanings of get, literal and metaphoric, have different morphologies in US English from UK English. – John Lawler Dec 31 '19 at 19:42
  • Does this dictionary link answer your question: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/worse ? If not, then please clarify why not. – TrevorD Dec 31 '19 at 19:45
  • This is a grammatical question, and dictionaries don't deal in grammar or constructions, only word meanings, usually deriving from idioms and special constructions. They are especially useless for words like be, have, and get, which are part of the machinery of grammar and not part of the meaningful lexicon. – John Lawler Dec 31 '19 at 19:48
  • @TrevorD I would indicate a duplicate from ELL but duplicates are a pain to find. Perhaps you can. I was not ranting. I was expressing my feelings. And I did not direct it at him but at the question. – Lambie Dec 31 '19 at 19:52
  • @Lambie "If I see this question one more time, I will scream." sounds to me like a 'rant'. – TrevorD Jan 01 '20 at 00:58
  • @JohnLawler The dictionary I referred to has rather more than just definitions. It has several example sentences illustrating usage using "worse" & "get/got worse" and I thought that it might be useful to OP in illustrating the usage asked about in the question. – TrevorD Jan 01 '20 at 01:07
  • @TrevorD It may be a rant but it is not directed at his face, as it were. Get worse is right. Me. By the way, Happy New Year. Off to get pizza. – Lambie Jan 01 '20 at 01:25
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    Yes, they do. See this Google Ngram. (The main difference in the graphs is explained by the fact that we used to say "has got" in the U.S. as well.) – Peter Shor Jan 01 '20 at 14:01
  • Thank you @Peter Shor! The Google Ngram was quite helpful and answered my question about the actual usage in British English! – Shiro Jan 01 '20 at 15:05
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    Does this answer your question? Difference between "I have got" and "I have gotten" There are restrictions; 'my cold has got [a lot] better' is totally idiomatic, while 'he has got conceited since receiving his doctorate' sounds awful. 'Become' works far better, probably because of corresponding registers. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 19 '23 at 16:15

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Yes. As Ngram shows, while it's gotten worse is far more common than it's got worse in American English, it's got worse is more common in British English. That said, gotten has rapidly gotten more popular in the UK, as Geoff Lindsey notes, due to American influence.

alphabet
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