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Hi,

I have a question to ask you about "have got" and "have gotten" forms. In British and American English "have/has got" means to have or to have to. However, in American English we can use "have/has gotten" to express different meanings, for example:

1) Have gotten - have obtained
I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on this hat.

2) Have gotten - have become
People have gotten confused by the new rules.

3) Have gotten - have entered
Chemicals may have gotten into the water.

I understand that we can not use British "have got" and American "have gotten" in the above examples interchangeably. What would be the British substitutes then for these examples? Would you more likely say in British English "Chemicals may have contaminated the water." instead?

Thank you!

Hi Marcin
Here are some British English substitutes for your American English examples:

1) Have gotten - have obtained
I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on this hat.
BRITISH: I’ve had/received a lot of compliments on this hat.

2) Have gotten - have become
People have gotten confused by the new rules.
BRITISH: People have got/been/become confused by the new rules.

3) Have gotten - have entered
Chemicals may have gotten into the water.
BRITISH: Chemicals may have got into the water.

You could say "Chemicals may have contaminated the water." instead, but that would sound more formal. There's no problem using 'got'.

In the example no 1, could I say: BRITISH: I've got a lot of compliments on this hat?

Thank you.

BRITISH: "I've got a lot of compliments on this hat" is not always wrong but it would probably be wrong in your example sentence
because:

have got + noun in Brit Eng most commonly refers to the present. e.g. "Have you got a light?" would in most situations mean "Do you have a light with you now?" not "Have you obtained a light?"

So "I've got a lot of compliments" sounds like you have the compliments now - a collection of written compliments perhaps.
But if you're talking about spoken compliments that you have received in the recent past, you wouldn't use "have got".

Thank you for your explanation it is really handy.

Cheers

You can use the British 'have got' interchangeably with the American 'have gotten' all of your examples.

There might be better ways of communicating each one, but they would all be acceptable in modern English.

One thing to keep in mind is 'have' can be the verb meaning 'to own, to hold' or it can also be part of the present perfect 'I have <verb>...'.

This information is very useful for me.