Boughten

[Steve Kl.]

If you want to catch them off guard, ask them what the opposite of homemade
bread is.

On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Boughten
>
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>
> You've forgotten the ill-gotten.
>
> "Boughten" sounds vaguely mock-Dutch, as does be-shitten (to go with
> ge-fucked). I've had a few friends from MI, WI, PA with Dutch or North
> German ancestry toss these around on regular basis, but I just asked one
> about "boughten" and got a blank. But -(schwa)n is a Yiddish suffix as
> well, is it not? Not that it would have contributed to "boughten"...
>
>     VS-)
>
> On 4/11/2010 10:34 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> > ... A number of -(e)n
> > participles are partially or fully retained in adjectival
> > use--boughten loaves, spitten images, [new-]mown lawns, graven
> > images, [clean-]shaven faces, [mis]shapen bodies, [un]proven
> > allegations--after they've completely or, as with "proven" largely,
> > fallen out of use as verbal past/passive participles.
> >
> > LH
> >
> >
>
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