3. You’ve Got to Help…
Today you receive a phone call from you non-native English speaking friend. All in a tizzy and agitated your friend quickly steers the conversation towards the purpose of the call. Your friend asks:
“(YOUR NAME INSERTED HERE), Would you please help me? I just don’t understand why I have to use the word ‘got‘ after the conjugated word ‘you’ve‘ but not if I say their equivalent ‘you have‘ without conjugation? Shouldn’t I be able to say ‘you’ve beautiful hair’ since its okay to say ‘you have beautiful hair?’ I just don’t understand why instead I have to say ‘you’ve got beautiful hair?’ Please, for the love of everything decent and good explain this to me because if you don’t I’m never going to be able to sleep again”
***
So – what’s your answer, smarty pants?
You don’t need to put “got” in there.
BUT here’s my justification of how the word “got” got in there.
no got = formal and impersonal.
When you simply say “you have xyz,” you make an obvious and impersonal statement. There’s no recognition that it was actually got by the owner from somewhere, somehow, from someone, at sometime for some reason with some effort or some luck. You just have it. No story. Boring.
got = engaging and personal
When you say “you have got xyz,” you are saying, “you went out and made the effort to acquire xyz.” The “got” recognizes the owner’s effort to acquire what they have. It begs the question of a story about its acquisition, and THEREFORE engages the owner, turning the formal statement into a more personal comment or conversation starter. Fascinating.
Do you buy it?
Got is a helping verb, and so is have. Combining them creates a stronger sense of completion, in this case emphasizing the truth of this verb, really. I’d say more, but I’ve got to go do some work now. Really. I do have some work to do. And I agree with Genevieve, if you want to write formally, you’ve really got to get rid of the contractions, eliminate totally every single last one of the unnecessary little modifiers and keep your sparkling text spotlessly clear of unnecessary though seemingly harmless clutter. You’ve just got to do it!