Forgotten in translation

This picture shows a fairly standard hotel bathroom sign (this one just happens to be in a bathroom in St Petersburg).

It got me thinking that I might have abbreviated “Did you forget something?” — which I assume “Forget something?” represents — differently.

As a UK native speaker of English, I’d have opted to consider the original question in the form “Have you forgotten something?” — the present perfect sits more comfortably with how I see the situation: the forgetting has effect now. I would therefore have written the sign as “Forgotten something?” It would perhaps also work as “Forgot something?”; you could even put “If you’ve forgotten anything, then…”

Now, I’m not suggesting that this isn’t a nerdy thought; and I’m certainly not suggesting that anyone could possibly misunderstand the sign as it is. But the choice of language is interesting. ‘Forget’ is actually the most accessible version, since it uses the basic present form of the verb, and it is the form that a foreign visitor is most likely to know.

As English continues its global spread, its uses and forms, gently pressured by so many more second-language than native-language users, are perhaps slowly moulding to more accessible forms, more regular patterns.

And this has profound implications for writers of language materials and tests.