language matters / 19
A Little Bit 
About Bitten
BY KRISTEN DI GENNARO
languagematters
A 
reader 
sent 
me an email 
a while back 
sharing 
his 
language pet 
peeve 
about 
“the improper 
use of the verb ‘bite,’ ” or more spe­
cifically, when people use “bit” for 
the past participle as in, “I got bit by 
a dog.” In Standard American Eng­
lish, the past participle for “bite” 
is “bitten,” so the sentence 
would be “I got bitten by 
a dog.” The past par­
ticiple is the form we 
use in passive sentenc­
es, where the subject 
of the sentence (in this 
case, I) is not the doer of 
the action but one who is 
acted upon (in this case, by a dog). 
If we change the structure of the sen­
tence from passive to active, “bit” 
works just fine, as in “A dog bit me.” 
In conversational English, we use 
active verb forms more than passive 
forms, making “bit” much more fre­
quent than “bitten” in general. Ad­
ditionally, many past participles and 
simple past forms are identical, such 
as the verb “accepted” in “I got ac­
cepted to my favorite school” and 
“My favorite school accepted me.” 
Finally, the -en at the end of “bitten” 
is unstressed, meaning we don’t pro­
nounce it very clearly. In fact, most 
Americans pronounce the middle 
consonants not as a “t” but as a glot­
tal stop, that sound we make in the 
middle of the expression “Nuh-uh!” 
to emphatically say “no.” After the 
glottal stop, we emit a nasal sound 
without much of a vowel, making 
the final syllable barely audible. So 
although it might not be Standard 
English (yet), we have at least three 
explanations as to why some speak­
ers use “bit” in place of “bitten.”
This focus on “bitten” reminds 
me of when I lived in Italy and was 
training to teach English at Inlingua, 
an international language school. I 
was the only American in a group 
of about 10 trainees. The rest were 
British. We were each assigned a 
grammatical point to create a les­
son around following the Inlingua 
method of oral presentation and 
repeated practice. I was 
assigned to teach the 
structure “have got,” 
as in “Have you got a 
pen?/I’ve got a pen.” 
The instructor com­
mented later that she 
had assigned that gram­
mar point to me as a chal­
lenge, because I speak American 
English and, unlike British speakers, 
typically use “have” as a main verb 
instead of “have got,” as in “Do you 
have a pen?” and “I have a pen.” 
After succeeding at my mock les­
son, I remember one of the British 
trainees commenting that at least I 
didn’t use that awful word “gotten.” 
Although I was aware of the “have 
got” vs. “have” distinction, I hadn’t 
noticed until then that “gotten” was 
verboten in British English. Does 
this mean British speakers might 
say, “I’ve got bitten by a dog”? If you 
speak British English, or another va­
riety of English, let me know which 
form you prefer.
Please share your language pet 
peeves and any other thoughts about 
language matters with your local 
linguist at languagematters@matters­
magazine.com. 
Kristen di Gennaro is an associate pro­
fessor of English at Pace University, 
where she teaches courses in linguistics.
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