Get It?

I was once informed by a friend that knew everything that the word ‘get' is not good English. According to her, good grammar does not include the word ‘get.' After she said this I looked at her in nothing less than stunned silence. At the time I had been an active reader and writer for almost a quarter of a century. How had I managed to miss this little rule?

True, grammar always was my weakest subject in English. But, still. How could I have overlooked that one? No ‘get's? None? Never? I was ashamed.

From then on, whenever I wrote something and I was tempted to put a ‘get' into the text, I struggled to find a substitute. (And editors wonder where an author's verbosity comes from. I'll tell them. From well-intentioned friends who don't ‘get' it.) Since my grandmother survived and raised two sons working as an English teacher, I realized I had better correct my past or she may just role over in her grave. I also assumed ‘got' was just as wicked.

So I no longer ‘got' an ‘A,' I received an ‘A'. (I wish.) I no longer ‘get' going. I begin. I am not ‘getting' a soda from the fridge, I am acquiring a soda. When I finish any writing, I do a search for the dreaded ‘get' -- they seem to find their own way into my work, I've discovered, whether I like it or not.

What I want to know is how a perfectly innocent (not to mention extremely useful) word like ‘get' could suffer such a fate. It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland (the Disney version), when she wanders into the over-sized garden and is accused of being a weed simply because she is not any recognized floral variety. A weed, indeed.

If ‘get' is such a poor word, where exactly did it come from, anyhow? After all, even weeds have their origins -- though where that is, I haven't a clue. Did it start as a slang word, perhaps coming from a cockney variety of ‘given'? Who can say? I suppose Henry Higgins might know, but he's fictitious and therefore completely unavailable for comment. There must be some linguist out there who knows the origin of ‘get', not to mention its proper usage.

The real problem is that I know I use ‘get' in every day spoken English. I use it all the time. When the telephone rings, I don't say, "I'll answer that." I say, "I'll get it." Or, more accurately, now that my son is grown, I say, "Get that, would you? It's probably for you, anyway." The door, too. When speaking of some purchase, I never say, "I would like to buy a new toaster." I say, "I want to get a new toaster." I suppose I am a veritable plethora of improper grammar.

It also makes me wonder what other words I am unintentionally misusing. Is ‘have' okay to use? How about ‘want'? According to this same son, ‘ain't' is now recognized as a word, even (he points out), holding a place in Webster's Dictionary. For a full six months he purposely used ‘ain't' just to prove his point. So why has poor, innocent little ‘get' gotten such a bad rap?

The more I think of it, the more I remember that the English language is a living language. That is, one that is changing and evolving constantly. So, while ‘get' might have been poor grammar some 20-odd years ago (when my friend was in school), I cannot help but think it might have found its way into common usage today. I may just begin using those ‘gets' again.

Get it?