Got it?
Despite my unabashed love of English, I can easily admit that it has its cruelties.
Even though it plunged them into utter despair, I always used to tell my students that there are as many exceptions in English as there are rules. As you’d imagine, my follow-up of, “oh, but that’s the charm of it!” did little to, uh, cheer them up.
Outdoing even the present perfect, I witnessed many eyes rolling back into many heads when phrasal verbs were on the agenda (i.e. all those verbs + a preposition which is the key to the verb’s meaning, and which makes no sense whatsoever. E.g. take + over, out, in, up…).
I think that the greatest cruelty of all, however, is the verb “to get.” It’s unfathomable. It means at once to have, to obtain, to buy, to receive… and then, and then and then some. Add a preposition, and… what?
What is the eager student of English to make of “I’ve got,” for instance? “I have have?” Bon sang, ces rosbifs.
I read somewhere that an American woman had done her Master’s thesis on the to get beast, and that 200 pages didn’t cover it.
So, class, based on the following story, please define the verb “to get.”
The whole get-together thing had got out of control; it had really got me down, and I had to get away. I knew there was no getting round it: I had to get some perspective; he’d got under my skin and I wasn’t sure whether I wanted only to get even or… So I got the afternoon off. I got some lunch then went to get the downtown bus.
I got home, got my chores done, then got out the computer to get my mail. And I’d got a chain letter from this chick.
“Only just getting by?” it starts. “All those bills got you down? Well here’s your chance to get out of debt and get rich quick. You don’t have to get a degree, just get off your butt, get motivated…” followed by some pyramid-like scheme being pushed by poor sops who just didn’t get it.
Oh, man, it really got to me. This chick had been getting after me for ever to get it together and get a better job. I’d tried to get through to her, and now this is what I get for being polite instead of just telling her to get lost.
Plus, she says she wants me to get back to her. Says she’s sure I’ll get into it. Christ, where she does she get off? (Oh, get this: she sells incense door to door, and she’s got the nerve to talk to me about getting a life.)
All I’d wanted was to get through the afternoon, get off on some music or get into a book and just get over the whole thing at work. But I couldn’t get this off my mind. So I decided to go see her, and get it straightened out once and for all (and maybe get some free incense)…
· · • · ·