Can be hid/can be hidden (2025)

Hi everyone, I have a quite simple question but it's kind of killing me. Should it be: "something can be hid" or "something can be hidden". I would use "something can be hidden" but I just heard a native English speaker saying "something can be hid" and so, I am pretty confused now.

Thank you!

The past participle "hid" is archaic or dialect.

Conjugation of hide - WordReference.com

pamela.e said:

I just heard a native English speaker saying "something can be hid" and so, I am pretty confused now.

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Don't assume that natives always speak "right".

There is a very wide-reaching phenomenon in which people use the simple past form of the verb as the past participle. It sounds really bad (to this native speaker), but is exceedingly common.

Some examples (which should be avoided): *It got hid. *It got broke. *He had went to the store. *I shouldn't have drank so much... (It got hidden✅, It got broken✅ , He had gone to the store✅ , I shouldn't have drunk so much✅)

pollohispanizado said:

Don't assume that natives always speak "right".

There is a very wide-reaching phenomenon in which people use the simple past form of the verb as the past participle. It sounds really bad (to this native speaker), but is exceedingly common.

Some examples (which should be avoided): *It got hid. *It got broke. *He had went to the store. *I shouldn't have drank so much... (It got hidden✅, It got broken✅ , He had gone to the store✅ , I shouldn't have drunk so much✅)

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Thank you so much! "He had went"? That sounds really weird...
By the way, interesting nickname!

Agró said:

The past participle "hid" is archaic or dialect.

Conjugation of hide - WordReference.com

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Thank you! Yeah, I looked it up and it says "hidden" but I was still confused.

pollohispanizado said:

Don't assume that natives always speak "right".

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Although it is a mark of poor education, this tendency is quite strong among some Americans, especially with very common verbs.

Ex.
I've came here lots of times, but every time I've ran right past it. I've even went past it and didn't notice it.

My advice: Avoid this mistake!

Also note that there is a difference between the past participles got and gotten in BrEn and AmEn.

gengo said:

Although it is a mark of poor education, this tendency is quite strong among some Americans, especially with very common verbs.

Ex.
I've came here lots of times, but every time I've ran right past it. I've even went past it and didn't notice it.

My advice: Avoid this mistake!

Also note that there is a difference between the past participles got and gotten in BrEn and AmEn.

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Thank you! Yes, I thought maybe it was the same that happens with "got" and "gotten" but now I know it's not

pamela.e said:

Thank you! Yes, I thought maybe it was the same that happens with "got" and "gotten" but now I know it's not

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That's right.

If you hear a British person say I've got - as opposed to the AmE I've gotten - this is entirely correct in BrE.

However, if someone says I've broke or I done (common among less educated native English speakers on both sides of the Atlantic) - this is non-standard and could be considered an "error".

NB I hesitated over the word "error". After all, if an individual grew up saying I've hid, having learnt this from their parents and peers, it is arguably correct within that language environment. But because the distinction between the standard I've hidden and the non-standard I've hid is now socioeconomic rather than geographical (as it was in the past), the non-standard form is seen as an error.

Wordy McWordface said:

If you hear a British person say I've got - as opposed to the AmE I've gotten - this is entirely correct in BrE

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Where I'm from, I've got and I've gotten are both possible, but they mean different things (I imagine this falls somwhere between AmE and BrE, as tends to happen here).

--How many dogs do you have?
--I've got three.

--I spoken Spanish for years, but lately I've gotten much better

pollohispanizado said:

Where I'm from, I've got and I've gotten are both possible, but they mean different things (I imagine this falls somwhere between AmE and BrE, as tends to happen here).

--How many dogs do you have?
--I've got three.

--I spoken Spanish for years, but lately I've gotten much better

.

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That's the just same as American English, surely? AmE has the idiomatic have/has/'ve/'s got ( sometimes reduced to just e.g. I got) to indicate possession, but it also retains the older past participle gotten for use when 'get' is a finite verb. As far as I know, Canadian English is the same as AmE in this respect.

pollohispanizado said:

Where I'm from, I've got and I've gotten are both possible, but they mean different things (I imagine this falls somewhere between AmE and BrE, as tends to happen here).

--How many dogs do you have?
--I've got three.

--I spoken Spanish for years, but lately I've gotten much better

.

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Wordy and I were only talking about the past participle of "to get," not the colloquial "to have got" that equals "to have."

Wordy McWordface said:

That's the just same as American English, surely?

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I haven't the slightest. It just came to mind. (Menos mal que el inglés es mi lengua materna porque, aun habiéndolo hablado toda mi vida, la gramática me resulta bien nebulosa a veces .)

Sorry if I went a bit off topic.

gengo said:

Wordy and I were only talking about the past participle of "to get," not the colloquial "to have got" that equals "to have."

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What's interesting is that gotten is starting to return to Britain, centuries after it fell out of use here. Our younger generation are so immersed in American English that many of them are (re-)adopting gotten as the past participle of get. Ask a 20-year-old Brit why they said "It's gotten old" and they'll tell you that it just "sounds right".

pollohispanizado said:

I haven't the slightest. It just came to mind. (Menos mal que el inglés es mi lengua materna porque, aun habiéndolo hablado toda mi vida, la gramática me resulta bien nebulosa a veces .)

Sorry if I went a bit off topic.

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Your Spanish is really good!!