And so it goes

I was in Homebase the other day, which had been totally revamped. I wandered upstairs to take a look at the furniture and noted that they had 'nightstands' for sale. What I want to know is, when did bedside tables become nightstands?

It was only a few years ago when I had to ask an American friend whose story I was betaing what a nightstand was. And now they're being sold in DIY outlets all over Britain.

We're becoming so used to Americanisms that it's becoming ever harder to spot them when we see them. Witness the very good Harry Potter story I read lately that had been betaed by at least one Brit. But she'd missed the 'gottens'. So used to reading them in US based fanfiction that she'd forgotten that gotten has been obsolete in Britain for a couple of hundred years or so, presumably. I must admit that it is a pet bug-bear of mine - any sentence structured to use 'gotten' just isn't British - we don't tend to use 'got', 'gotten' etc in the same way that Americans do.

Or at least we don't at present. I'm not taking any bets on the future.