“Hello, Sir. May I help you?”
“Yes. I am looking for a pair of green socks.”
“We don’t got any of those.”
“We don’t got any of those”?????
You have probably heard such statements, and many of you have written to me about got and have. They are two separate verbs with two different meanings.
To have means “to possess.” The present tense is have. The past tense is had. The past participle is have (or has) had.
- I have a new blue dress.
- I had a blue dress that I gave away.
- I have had many dresses that I later gave away.
To get means “to obtain.” If you say I don’t got any, that is incorrect because you are using got in the present tense. The present tense is get. The past tense is got. The past participle is have (or has) gotten.
- I am getting a new computer today.
- I got a new computer last week.
- I have gotten a new computer every three years.
Both have and got (not get) can be used as helping, or auxiliary verbs, so maybe that is where some of the confusion lies.
- Have is used as a helping verb with the past participle form of a verb: have eaten, have gone, have walked, etc.
- Got is used less often, and more informally, as a helping verb: I have got to clean up this mess (meaning must.)
Keep those pet peeves and other strange things you see and hear coming in!
In Minnesota people like to borrow you things instead of loaning them to you.
As for the misuse of got, blame the cows. “Got milk?”
Interesting! Borrow and lend are opposites! Thanks for the info. Loan is actually the noun, and lend is the verb, but I think the distinction is going away.
In my experience, ‘got’ is absolutely redundant and can be thrown away.
Yes, in many cases it can be eliminated entirely. For example, in the heading of this post!
There’s also a slightly informal passive use of “got”–he got arrested (= he was arrested). I got drunk. They got married (slightly different shade of meaning from They were married). He got her pregnant. She got pregnant. I got tired. They got away. We got carried away. She got excited. I don’t get it. He really gets me. There are many idiomatic uses of “get/got” that go far beyond what is presented here. Sometimes, the more formal term would be “became.” But “We became married” is non-idiomatic. The only native way to say it is “We got married in 1979. We were married for 10 years. then we got divorced.”
Thanks for that additional information. Yup, there are those secondary meaning of got and get. Makes it a very difficult language to learn!
It was only when I became an adult that I learned that I had grown up with a Midwestern accent where, “The baby wants fed.” or “The cat wants out.” were truncated sentences omitting the be verb. I was shocked! It still sounds perfectly normal to me!
There is certainly room for regional expressions and ways of saying things in the language, so thank you for point those out. I am from the East Coast and now live on the West Coast and while I don’t often hear your first example, I have certainly heard the cat wants out.Wanting out has become an idiomatic expression. I think your first example is more of a regionalism.
I think–but am not sure–that in the following song lyrics “got” is used to show possession and not the act of obtaining something:
Irving Berlin:
Got no mansion, got no yacht,
Still I’m happy with what I’ve got;
I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night
Cole Porter:
I’ve got you under my skin.
I’ve got you deep in the heart of me.
These are savvy users of English. Perhaps song writers operate under different grammatical and usage rules from those that control formal language.
Another example, which may have been mentioned last week, is “ain’t.” We find “ain’t” in works like “Ain’t She Sweet,” “Ain’t Misbehavin'” and “(You ain’t nothing but a) Hound Dog.”In these songs, I don’t believe that “Isn’t” would be a more appropriate word choice. Still, some critics might argue that while “ain’t” works in the songs, its use degrades language overall.
Artist license! I wouldn’t write a business letter using ain’t or “got no . . .” but I might write a song or poem using them.
I instinctively correct those, no matter their age, the correct usage when I hear them speak incorrectly. I think it’s especially important when the individual is a student.
As far as BE over AE, Jack says that he’s heard “We don’t got any” in England too.
Love your weekly blogs, Arlene.
Yes! I am glad you correct the students on this. Nothing worse than when you ask for something in a store and the young (or older) clerk says, We don’t got those. Ah! I can use Jack as my resident BE expert!
what is the difference between alright and all right? even people who call themselves *writers* seem confused
Alright is slang and not really a word. All right is the correct way to use it all the time. There is no difference in meaning except that alright is “wrong” – in the way irregardless is wrong. It is in the dictionary, but . . .
Could you please say more about what you mean when you say that a slang expression (like “alright”) is “not really a word”? Perhaps I’m asking: “What determines if a group of letters or an utterance is–or is not– a word? Thanks.
There are standards in the language – and in any language, and in most things. All right is standard. If I am writing a letter to someone who might know the standards — or writing a book, particularly noncreative nonfiction — I want to use standard language. There is formal language, and there is more informal language. Most of the time we don’t use slang in formal writing.
Hi Arlene – Growing up in “da Bronx,” I often heard “I ain’t got none.”
A pretty far stretch from “I haven’t got any,” don’tcha think??? 😉
Cheers,
Rosina
I believe I have heard the same sentence, and I didn’t grow up in Da Bronx!
Often heard in UK too
CB
“Gotten” is purely AE (it doesn’t exist in BE)
Really? What is the past participle of get? Get, got, have gotten???
We say – get got got (We say that “gotten” doesn’t exist)
xC
Thanks for the answer to my question. So you would say “we have got” instead of “we have gotten”? To me we have got means the same as we have, while we have gotten means more like we have received. Semantics.
Years ago, I moved from NYC to the mid-West. I was
Intrigued by the transformation of (in NYC terms) “beat X” to “beat X up.” Any comments on this? All Good Wishes, Lew Fried
It would seem as the word beat has a slightly different meaning and use from beat up. To beat can mean lots of different things. When you are hurting someone, I would assume beat up is more appropriate.
beat X up is a Chicago ethnic add on/confusion over which preposition to use, or not use as in “I’m going to the store.”
“Oh! Can I go with?”
Thanks for the information. It is difficult for nonnative speakers to figure out which prepositions go with which verbs.