Usage of "has gone to" in American English

[Molly]

I'm trying to get a grip on the usage of "has gone to" in AmEng and finding it quite hard to understand the distinction between examples such as these?

He went to school every day this week.
He has gone to school every day this week.
He has been to school every day this week.

He went to the concert many times.
He has gone to the concert many times.
He has been to the concert many times.

[Yankee]

It seems that "gone to" can be and is used similarly in BE, so I'm not sure why you claim to have a problem with the use of "gone to" or why you seem to want to categorize it as being exclusively "American". It seems more likely to me that the main difference between BE and AmE in this case may simply be frequency of usage. Your professed lack of understanding for "gone to" may simply be a reflection of your own personal mental block and/or your own personal preference for "been to" over "gone to".

Since you are clearly a speaker of British English, it may be more useful for you to try to analyze what you seem to perceive as a British preference for the use of "been to" even though "go to" appears to be quite acceptable in BE when used in a different verb form/tense (i.e. similar context, similar meaning, different verb form).

Here are some examples of "gone to school" as used in BE (various perfect forms):

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Meanwhile, 75% of children out of education in these countries had mothers who had not gone to school.

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I think that tells you race was a factor in all of this but I'm just delighted today Jordan has gone to school, at long last.
(This article may be especially interesting to you since it mentions a Nigerian woman with a UK passport.)

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Sometimes we get people in from local businesses, or other role models- recently we had a visit from Oxford University students who had gone to school in Newham.

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She settled into playschool very quickly and soon made lots of very good friends who she has now gone to school with. (From Julia D's testimonial)

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Muriel Spark would also have gone to school in that building.

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Having lived in Barking and Dagenham for most of my life and gone to school here, I have very high expectations of all students.

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I have trained many people who begin in this way and carry on long after their own children have gone to school.

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I am being bullied at school. Well I was, and it has happened before. Both times I told my parents and they've gone to school and it's stopped,...

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Then there is a group of young people aged 19 -24, many of whom will have gone to school here, who are training in our workshops which help people with special needs to grow and mature into Adulthood.

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Would you like to have lived in Victorian times and gone to school with just boys or girls?
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_________________
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." ~ Abraham Lincoln

[Molly]

[Yankee]

Molly

I'm not nervous in the least, and I am quite serious when I say that the main problem may be that you've simply set up a mental block for yourself. Would you have preferred this sort of less "personalized" wording: "Some people have trouble understanding things when they've got a mental block"?

It is quite obvious that you prefer and feel more comfortable with BE. I'm not sure why you seem to object to the fact that I've noticed that.

I went to the trouble of finding and posting quite a few examples for you, and links were included so that you could also see/read them in context. My suggestion was to analyze usage differently. Analyze it from a BE perspective first. Ask yourself some questions about the version of English you know, and then try to answer them objectively. Rather than blindly assuming that "go to" must be changed to "be to" simply because the present perfect is used, you need to try to understand why it is you seem to think that is an ironclad "rule".

I am not a speaker of British English, so you'd be better off asking Alan or MrP or Stew, for example, about the finer points of BE usage.
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_________________
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." ~ Abraham Lincoln

[Molly]

[Sitifan]

http://www.englishforums.com/English/HasGoneToInAmeng/gpzqw/post.htm
"nobody has gone to jail" vs "nobody is in jail"
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Thank you very much for your reply.

[Molly]

[Lost_Soul]

[Yankee]

Hi Alex

Mollster is just upset about the fact that (1) "gone to" can be used exactly the same way in BE as it is in AmE, (2) the fact that we apparently use "gone to" more often in AmE than "been to" is used in BE, and (3) the fact that after the 1600s American English and British English both changed -- but not always in exactly the same ways.

Massively prescriptive, wouldn't you say? :wink:
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_________________
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." ~ Abraham Lincoln

[Molly]

[Molly]

[Yankee]

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Wrong again, Mollster. You've been ranting and raving all over the Internet for years about your professed inability to cope with AmE. Maybe you should post your questions about AmE over at WordReference. Perhaps you'll have more luck with them than you're apparently having with English-test.net, EnglishPage.com, EnglishForums.com, eslcafe.com, or Antimoon.
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_________________
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." ~ Abraham Lincoln

[Molly]

Amy's all upset because she thinks someone is beating down on her variant. Poor gal. Don't we just get tired of this "hands of the US whinge" which has permeated every strand of the Net?

Wonder why she finds it OK to beat down on other people's variants and keeps stum when her flocking friends and pastor do the same. Strange lass if you ask me.

[MrPedantic]

[Molly]

In comes the shepherd. :lol: