I'm sure there are plenty of blogs on this very same topic, but here's my two pence worth..I am forever being bugged by people using the wrong verb. Let me slightly correct that. Not the wrong verb, simply people getting mixed up who they are when using a verb. Let me explain.. One of my friends recently told me that they were going to learn me something.. learn, learn! It took me all my wits not to shout at the top of my irate voice, "I think you mean teach. I'm the one learning not you!"
Another mis-representation that I hear, though thankfully less often, is when people get mixed up between buying and brought'ing. Using, "I brought it from the supermarket" when you really mean you bought it there. This particular problem really is simple 10 year olds English grammar, isn't it?
Then there's my main gripe - everybody under 30 constantly (mis-)using the verb "to get" when ordering in restaurants or shops. F*ck me, do these people all think they are in Califonia or something?
"Can I get a chocolate muffin and an espresso..." "Can I get the Lasagne with garlic bread." Oh to be a waiter just for a night or work in a coffee shop for an afternoon. When asked this question I'd love to respond, "No you can't... I'm the waiter and I'll GET you it, you can HAVE it you dumbo!". In short then, people can 'get together', you can 'go and get it', 'get rid of a problem', 'get better' but you simply can't get something off a menu unless you work in the place!
Now I don't have a language degree to do the analysis with but it strikes me there's a passive/aggressive issue here too. Just think about the way in which "can i get" sounds next time you hear someone using it. It is squarely centred on the "I" and is a very possessive verb, almost aggressive when compared against the alternative, softer sounding "can/may I have". To have almost implies that somebody else has given, of their own free will so to speak. A passive, humanistic gesture if ever there was one. To get implies a taking action, regardless of whether the other person is giving of free will or not. Hmm... getting deep into liguistics here, so I'll move on.
The thing that really depresses me about this creeping change in language is that a lot of the people getting messed up over such fundamental English grammar are so called intelligent people. I have only one thing to say to these types, wake up! take the pillow from your head and put a book in it (a KRS-One line not mine) & maybe just maybe stop watching so many American sit-com's that drip feed this language deep into your psyche.
So, between the confusion over get and have, the ignorance over learning and teaching and buying and bringing.. it would seem the whole world is either verbally fucked up or just going grey and not thinking before opening their mouths? And you already know my views on that one.
Let's ponder the pervasiveness of "can I get" just one more time... Perhaps most of the people that use the term are ignorant to the fact that it is also the title of a Jay Z track, Can I Get A.. Most people who have heard it will have the chorus stuck somewhere in their sub-conscious. It goes something like.. Can I Get A What What.. I prefer the original release, true to its hip hop roots (did i just say that about Jay Z, I must book into the doctors for a check up some time soon?) as the chorus describes my exact feelings about this whole sorry grammatical mess...
The original uncensored chorus was "Can I Get A.. Fuck You."
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