Welcome to a new year and to a new blog post.
Are you ready to GET the year started with a bang? Are you ready to get to grips with to get?
You do get “get”, right? I mean, you understand it, don´t you?
Oh, you don´t? Well, don’t worry.
You’ll get it soon.
My students often complain about to get. The way they see it, this is a verb that we use everywhere and for just about everything. It´s a verb that is impossible to pin down.
So, let´s GET started.
It´s time to get the verb to get under control.
GET – (AKA also known as ARRIVE)
Get ready! This is a BIG one.
When we reach a place or a certain stage of a journey, we often use the verb to arrive. I think that everybody knows this verb and that should really be THAT. Except that, (if you’ve been paying really close attention to native speakers), we often use the verb to get. And that confuses you, doesn´t it?!
So, I’m going to explain how it works.
We usually use to arrive when we don´t specify a destination (although as you know, in English, there are always exceptions).
“She arrived with her sister.”
“They arrived by car.”
“They arrived in the morning”.
The verb to get is used with a destination and is followed by the preposition to.
“When we got to the station, the train had already left.”
“I got to the party around midnight.”
And now for the part you were dreading – the exceptions.
There are four of them. Yes. FOUR!
But they are easy. I know that you already know them.
Once again, we are using to get with a destination but we do NOT use the preposition to.
To get here
“I got here about an hour ago.”
To get there
“Oooh! I think we got there around 10 pm.”
To get home
“I was at a party last night and I got home around 2 am.”
To get back
“We got back from London in the early hours of the morning.”
GET – (AKA RECEIVE)
Giving is fun but receiving is even more fun.
Even if we replace the verb to receive with to get.
Why we do this is anyone’s guess, but if I were a betting man, I’d say that firstly, get is shorter than receive, and we do love to economize in English.
Additionally, get has its origins in the Old Norse verb /geta/, and Old English verb /gietan/ used by the native inhabitants of England before the Norman Invasion of 1066 resulted in the Anglo French /recievre/ (with its origins in the Latin /recipere/ taking hold for a while. Very often, the existing Anglo-Saxon words that were being used when the Normans arrived seem to have had much greater staying power than their equivalents of Latin or French origin.
Curiously.
But enough of that.
Let´s look at some examples.
“I got two emails this morning.”
“He got over 20 cards on his last birthday.”
GET – (AKA OBTAIN)
The verb to obtain meaning to get, to acquire, to conquer, to gain or to inherit something also arrived with the Normans. Of course, they were using the French verb obtenir, which was eventually anglicized as to obtain. This verb was used by the French-speaking ruling classes, professional people, and the intelligentsia. The ordinary folk continued to speak an early form of English and kept using their own verb - to get. That´s why today, we get university degrees and driving licenses amongst many other things.
GET – (AKA TAKE or CATCH)
When we use a form of transport that is driven, piloted, or captained by another person, we use the verb to get. If you are wondering what kind of transport that is, well, that could be a taxi, a bus, a train, a taxi, a flight or even a rickshaw.
Now, before you start getting in a flap. You can, by all means, continue to use to take or to catch. They are perfect.
But listen to native speakers and you will notice that colloquially we will use to get more often.
And if you don´t believe ME, look at what I found on Google.
If you look up to get a taxi, you get a staggering 567,000,000 results. This drops to 378,000,000 for to take a taxi and just 62,900,000 for to catch a taxi.
Just so you know.
GET – (AKA EARN)
Walk away if somebody asks you how much you earn on a first date. FAST!
Nobody should ask you this kind of question. Ever.
Unless that is, you are in a courtroom and it is a judge who is asking the question. In formal situations, the verb to earn may still be used to describe how a person gets money in return for work or services, HOWEVER, colloquially, native speakers will often use to get.
“How much did you get for the painting?”
“He is getting €18,000 a year from his rental property.”
GET – (AKA UNDERSTAND)
I’m sure you´ve heard or seen the expressions I get it! and I don’t get it!
The question is: Do you REALLY get it?
If you do, then it´s because you know that get is often used as a synonym for understand.
“I really couldn´t get what she was saying.”
“I have the manual, but I just can´t get these instructions.”
“I´ve been studying German for five years, but I don´t think I will ever get it”.
GET – (AKA BRING or FETCH)
When somebody brings you something from another location, we increasingly use the verb to get. Older speakers (who grew up when the world was much more formal and dare I say, polite) or people who were raised with butlers and chauffeurs (in other words, aristocrats), may use the increasingly antiquated to fetch, a verb which would not sound out of place in Buckingham Palace, (but might sound strange in a council estate house in the suburbs)!
Let’s see how this form of to get works:
“Oh! If you go upstairs, can you get my glasses? They are on my bedside table.”
“I’m going to the supermarket. Do you need me to get you anything?”
“Yes, please get some milk. Oh, and get some sugar too. We are almost out!”
GET – (AKA CAPTURE or SEIZE)
We use the verb to capture to describe the situation of taking somebody prisoner (usually against their will) or taking possession of something by force. The more commonly used to get is not so dramatic. It usually has the connotation of “catching somebody” and is usually used in terms of law enforcement. Full stop!
“The police got the drug dealers as they walked out of the club.”
“We couldn´t get them because we really didn’t know where they were hiding.”
GET + ADJECTIVE – (AKA BECOME)
This is the usage of to get that causes you the most confusion. Right?!
Get AND an adjective?! Can that really be right? How does it work? Get ready! (which, by the way, is a perfect example of what I´m about to explain).
When we want to show a change of state, we often use the verb to get.
For example, if you watch a very long movie, at the beginning there is a sense of expectation and excitement, but eventually, you start to feel bored or tired.
In other words, you get bored or get sleepy.
If you win the lottery, you get rich quickly. If you eat something that is not cooked properly, you might get sick. If you go to a new place and you don’t have a map you might get lost.
Some languages like Spanish and French use reflexive verbs to describe this change of state. So, for my Spanish readers, lesionarse translates as to get injured and if that happens you might enfadarse or get angry. If you are French, and tu te fatigues, then you are getting tired.
HAVE GOT
Finally, let´s talk about one usage of to get that I really, REALLY don´t like. Unfortunately, it´s so common, and I get so many questions about it, that I will have to mention it here.
When we talk about possession (and not of the demonic kind), we normally use the verb to have. If you possess a car, then you have a car. If you buy a house, then you have a house.
However, at some point, people started saying I have got… and, what’s more, it became accepted usage.
In my opinion, adding got to I have doesn´t make any sense. Grammatically, it is not correct, as got is the past simple and not a participle. In addition, you can only use it in the Present Simple or Past Simple. It doesn´t work in any compound tenses, the future simple or the conditional. So, what, if any sense does it make to bother learning how to use this – with all of the confusion it can lead to.
My advice, DROP IT. NOW!
And if you want more, you´ll have to wait for my next blog post.
This one is officially FINISHED.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Get busy!
Get your notebook!
Get your English in shape in 2021.
Don't forget to review my blog post on 4 phrasal verbs which use the verb to get.
T H E L A S T W O R D
In this section, I’ll include an explanation of vocabulary from each chapter which you may not be familiar with. Learning is fun!
with a bang (exp) successfully or impressively
to get to grips with (vb) to begin to deal with or to understand
to dread (vb) to anticipate something or someone with fear or apprehension
staying power (noun) ability to keep going or survive when conditions are not ideal
to acquire (vb) to come into possession of something
staggering (adj) shocking, astonishing
increasingly (adv) to an increasing extent or more and more
butler (n) senior male servant
chauffeur (n) person employed to drive a luxury passenger car
council estate (n) group of houses built by/rented to tenants by the local council
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