I know "get" has a lot of meanings. But what is this one - to cause something to happen? I do not think it is "have sth done" but not sure of course.
It got you paralysed.
What is the difference against
It paralysed you.
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4I can't site any sources, but my grade school English teacher would have cringed at the sentence "It got you paralyzed."– LumberjackCommented Sep 15, 2013 at 21:19
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"It got you paralyzed" is similar to "It caused you to become paralyzed." I think a better example might be something like "Telling the police about the mob's extortion can get you killed." Or even "The mob boss can get you killed by one of his henchmen." Basically, it's a way of showing a sort of indirect causal relationship. Neither your telling the police nor the mob boss directly kills you, but they initiate the process that causes you to be killed.– ahrussCommented Sep 16, 2013 at 4:58
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As a matter of taste, I prefer "It paralysed you" as it is the active voice. The indirect usage can be proper as well: "Watching a twobow while driving can get you paralysed," Tom said without movement.– Tom SwiftyCommented Sep 16, 2013 at 18:28
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1@Lumberjack Did it get him angry?– JezCommented Sep 25, 2013 at 11:06
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5 Answers
This is the causative use of "get." Other causatives include "let," "make," and "have." It's probably best thought of as a special kind of passive.
I found a mini tutorial on causatives, if you're interested. It describes some of the differences, which I think was your original question.
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I could not come up with the word causative to save my life yesterday. This is absolutely correct. Commented Sep 25, 2013 at 18:32
In the first sentence, "got" means "caused to become." But that's a very awkward construction that no native speaker would ever use. To an American, at least, it sounds like a parody of roundabout, stereotypically "redneck" constructions - compare with "you done got told."
More often, you'd see that same meaning of "get" used in the active voice: "He got better" is a perfectly normal sentence, meaning that the person in question became better (either in the sense of recovering from an illness or in the sense of gaining skill, i.e. becoming better at something). In this case, it could be turned around as "You got paralyzed,"¹ which sounds natural, but then you've lost the subject. In most contexts that's okay, because hopefully it's obvious what caused the paralysis, but if you need to stress, for example, that one particular spider bite was to blame, you would need to use the active voice, "It paralyzed you." Simply adding the subject at the end, "You got paralyzed by it," doesn't work only because it mixes the informality of "got" with the formality of the inverted passive tense.
¹Side note: this and many other -se verbs are spelled -ze in American English, but -se in Britain and most other places.
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I would say that, seen in the wild, "it got you paralyzed" is most likely not past tense, but colloquial American for "it's got you paralyzed" (and note dropping the 's' is generally considered bad grammar). Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 19:10
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"It's got you paralyzed" means something completely different. I've never ever heard anyone use that construction with the 's' dropped, although it might be more reasonable in AAVE.– jfmattCommented Sep 16, 2013 at 19:23
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I know that the first example sounds awkward, but I believe it's paralysed that's the problem, not got. Hasn't anyone ever heard someone say something like: "It nearly got me killed?" That's a classic passive construction. "It's got" (or it has got) means something different entirely and in AmE would be completely wrong because this isn't expressing present tense possession. It would have to be "It's gotten me paralysed" for that to work. If we're talking BrE, than it's got is fine. I know paralysed is a BrE spelling, but my AmE spell check has been flagging paralyzed so I'm not sure. Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 18:44
'It got you paralysed' is an awkward construction, as @jfmatt says. A better way to put it is 'It had you paralysed'. This means that it (the event) kept you paralysed (or frozen or motionless) specifically while it was occurring.
'It paralysed you' is simply that it caused you to become paralysed, without specifying the duration or whether the paralysis stopped when the event itself did.
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"It had you paralyzed" is a completely different meaning than "it got you paralyzed."– MrHenCommented Oct 3, 2013 at 20:35
In the sentence, "It got you paralysed," "got" means "caused [you] to become." "Got" is not representing an action. It's an auxiliary verb. Paralysed is the action verb.
So, "it" is the subject and "got paralysed" is the verb. The pronoun "you" is the direct object. If the sentence describes an action being done by the direct object to the subject (in that order O-V-S), then it's passive voice.
Passive voice is formed with an auxiliary (got/had/was) with the participial form of the action verb (paralysed).
In the sentence, "It paralysed you," "it" is again the subject, except that this time, it took an action (paralysed) on the direct object ("you"). Active voice describes an action done by the subject to the object (Subject-Verb-Object).
In formal constructs active voice is preferred; but informally, both are standard in the US and both are generally interchangeable. Changing the order changes nothing.
While I do agree that "It got you paralysed" is slightly awkward, if that "it" is representing alcohol that you've drunk, for example, that would make sense between friends. It still means the same thing whether you phrase it has "had you paralysed" or "got you paralyzed," although of these two choices, "got you" is stronger. It puts the emphasis on what it made you become.
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It got you paralytic is compeletely idiomatic, but not the same as OPs sentence. It had you paralysed, on the other hand, is a very interesting comparison - not even an English teacher would object to it, but the meaning is very close to the (objectionable) original. Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 22:24
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I'm not using got to mean have. I mean to say made me become, but it does also fit meaning had (in which case you would be correct -- I don't dispute that). I specifically was using got drunk in my head when I wrote that. That's why I said that if it was to be got (sans have/had), the pronoun it would need to be something that fit with that usage like alcohol. All of the alcohol I drank last night (it) got me paralysed. I do admit that doesn't fit all scenarios. Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 22:39
English is not my first language, but the way I see it, "It paralyzed you" implies that whatever we refer to as "it" was the direct cause of the paralysis, while "It got you paralyzed" doesn't.
For example, "You tried to do good, but all it did is get you paralyzed". Here doing good wasn't the direct cause, but this choice did eventually lead to paralysis. If I said "You tried to do good, but it only paralyzed you", the meaning would be different, you'd be inclined to think that trying to do good somehow led to inaction, in other words it in itself paralyzed you, figuratively yet directly.
That's my take on it.
answered Apr 12, 2015 at 14:19
