I really thought I’d have the time this semester to update my blog, but it turns out I’m overwhelmed with other things and unfortunately have to kill it off until summer.
So goodbye till then.
Considering several rationales, including, but not limited to, the lack of funding for grammar school, the need to appeal to consumers who have horrible grammar themselves, or a typographical blunder, I’m putting my money on down-to-earth kitschiness as the reason why H&R Block’s current slogan reads “You Got People.”
Stop me if I’m making things up, but got don’t swing that way. It’s a past-tense form of the verb to get, meaning to acquire, and it’s right at home in sentences like “I got an anatomically correct sculpture for my birthday” and “Crayola chicken pox got me out of detention.”
For the couch-potato linguist who milks his excitement vicariously through grammatical structures, to get is friends with the auxiliary verb to have. There are an infinite number of sentence constructions using the two: “Dylan has gotten more muscular this month,” “Dylan’s gotten nineteen gold medals,” etc.
So, the burning question: If it’s has gotten and have gotten, how come I can say has got and have got, as in “Dylan has got to stop using steroids?”?
Glad you asked. The answer is that you can say whatever you want. No one is are going to stopping you.
Seriously, though, the has got construction may at one point have been passed off as “incorrect usage,” as are most budding grammatical constructions and turns of phrase. In most cases, though, it’s just a matter of English changing to adapt to (and to adopt) a new way of saying something. Remember the nineteenth century? Probably not. I’ll fill you in: people said “Have you this?” and “Have you that?” Got wasn’t yet at center stage — back then it was only a groupie. But now, we’re inclined towards turns of phrase like “Got a cigarette?” and “Got Milk?,” in which got wholly replaces have, even though got is traditionally the past-tense form of to get, and not an infinitive. Am I confusing you yet?
It seems that phrases like “Got Milk?” are shorter forms of phrases like “Have You Got Milk?,” but because in the former the auxiliary verb is nowhere to be found, and also because of the overly prim and proper, almost wholesomely Amish connotation of “Have You Got Milk?” on a billboard, I’ll leave this one alone.
So, back to the starting line: Why does a gigantic corporation like H&R Block, which obviously has the budget for a plethora of top-notch marketing executives, screw up the grammar in their slogan? “You’ve Got People” sounds good enough to me — though as you may have noticed from this article, I’m a grammar Nazi, and it very well may be that “You Got People” sounds “good enough” to the average layperson. I’ll admit that “You Have People” sounds like less of a corporate slogan and more of a cross stitch pattern you’d find in your mother’s kitchen. But come on, H&R — I know you went to accounting school, but surely you know about auxiliary verbs?
While I’m at it, I’ll share the new Domino’s advertising campaign slogan with you: “You Got 30 Minutes.” (Which, by the way, is a scam of a campaign that focuses not on 30-minute delivery, but the “gift” of free time to their consumers.)
You be the judge. If you speak English, you have a minuscule influence on the way our language develops. It’s the speakers, not some committee of cantankerous grammar grouches, that shape the language.
But maybe it’s sticklers like me who complain about the language that keep it from evolving too quickly.
I think “avid” is an appropriate term for my previous blogging, as I have been gone but two weeks and already feel the pangs of separation between myself and WordPress. Moreover, due to my rather frequent posting habits of yesteryear, two weeks is something of an eternity to be away from my window to the world. Not long enough, however, to come back with a tacky “hello world!” post, in which the only words are “hello world!” (words, I might add, which are more suitable for the millions of blogs that die after their first post, namely the “hello world!” post).
And speaking of glass-pane metaphors, I suppose I should reconsider my last. If this were merely a window to the world, I’d be sitting with my elbows on the sill and watching the rain fall, or perhaps be spying on the creepy old lady next door. It’s more than a window because of its interactive element. Maybe a drive-through window is more appropriate. Especially for quick posts.
Anyway, I’ve discovered a strange cycle in my writing habits. It seems I flourish with my words towards the end of summer, and become weighed down by the oh-so-familiar blank screens of writer’s block in December and early January. What does this mean for you, reader? Why, it simply means that the temporary vow of silence I’d taken in December was a mental vacation. Call it holiday stress, call it seasonal affective disorder, call it what you will. From here on I’ll be picking up speed as far as I can guess.
What will be different about this magnificent new year, two thousand eight, will be the lack of those twice-a-week “neologisms of the day” that have attracted so many fans and admirers. Sure, I can think up twenty or thirty novel words. But 104 a year, on top of school and work? Not a promising promise. I’m sure I’ll have some neologisms to share with my readers (I have a couple brewing) but they’ll appear only when they’re borne from the depths of my insanity (in other words, in a sporadic fashion).
This semester’s going to be tough on an English major. Four classes and fifteen books, twelve of them plays and novels. So this is no summer vacation for me or my WordPressin’.
See you all in the coming weeks.
P.S. Screw that post about not spending any money in January. I’ve already failed.
P.P.S. Reflecting on this reflection, I realize I’d committed one of the cardinal sins of blogging: thinking my material was immaterial to the blogosphere. But anything you write, whether it’s trivial or indispensable, whether it’s publicly displayed or burned immediately afterward, is a step forward in the career of a writer. The only way to get better at writing is to read and to write, and wouldn’t you know it? Blogs provide both services.
P.P.P.S. Yes, I should just include all these postscripts in the main body of my post. But it’s fun to have them down here. Anyway, here’s what I just realized, and this goes along with my post about wanting to have been born in the 19th century: blogging is, in a sense, a step up from conversation. And when it’s put that way, it’s almost like the modern-day equivalent of writing letters to friends by candlelight to discuss anything and everything in a diplomatic and intelligent way.
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