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Can We Help?: Got or gotten? What a nightmare!

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Presenters sit on set, text overlay reads "Why do we have nightmares and not night stallions?"
Can We Help?: Got or gotten? What a nightmare!

SUBJECTS:  English

YEARS:  5–6


Words have a history.

Knowing their history helps us to understand what they mean and why some people use them in different ways.

Professor Kate Burridge explains how the use of the past tense of the verb 'get' (gotten) has changed, but is still in use by many people. She also discusses the history of the word 'nightmare'.


Things to think about

  1. 1.Do you use 'gotten' or 'got' as the past tense of the word 'get'? Which one do you think is correct? Have you ever thought about where the word 'nightmare' came from?
  2. 2.Listen for a word Kate uses to suggest that many Australians consider 'gotten' to be American English. What does Kate say about the history of 'got' and 'gotten'? What are the origins of the word 'nightmare'? What part does the evil spirit ('Mare') play in explaining the origin of the word? When did the meaning of the word nightmare change to 'bad dream'?
  3. 3.Why was the Bishop of London worried about the use of 'got'? Can you think of another verb that has two different past-tense forms that are both used? Kate says 'nightmare' was used as a term of abuse in the 1600s. In how many ways is the word used today?
  4. 4.Find out the history of a verb that has two different past-tense forms still in use. What more can you find out about the old English evil spirit 'Mare'? Do some more research, then write an explanation about how the spirit became connected with bad dreams.


Date of broadcast: 22 Feb 2008


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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