Gotten seems forgotten

PETER Bannatyne (Letters, August 8) is wrong when he says that “gotten” is an ugly imported American word .

He obviously does not know the auld Scots sang, The Four Maries, which song contains the following verse: “But now I’ve gotten for my reward, The gallows to be my share.” The song refers to the serving maids of Mary, Queen of Scots,and was written long before any American influence on the language. Willie Douglas, 252 Nether Auldhouse Road, Glasgow. LIKE Moyna Gardner (Letters, August 10), I too dislike the “I was like …” construction. However, unlike her, I did not leave school with a belief that there should be no comma before the word and in a list of items.

Some schoolmasters taught me that I should omit the comma; others that I should not. I finally emerged from school with a preference for the Oxford comma – so called because it conforms to the house style of the Oxford University Press. In my opinion the Oxford (or serial) comma can help a writer avoid ambiguity or confusion.

It is particularly helpful when the items themselves contain the word and, for instance, “Some of my favourite foods are: chicken, bread and butter, beef and bacon and egg”. If the Oxford comma had been used in this sentence it would be clear that it was the combination of “bacon and egg” that constituted a favourite food.

Just don’t get me started on -ise or -ize. Peter Martin, Sruth Ruadh, Milton, Strathconon, Muir of Ord.