What should we use when someone is injured?
Are you hurt?
Or it should be
Did you get hurt?
I felt using the second one as improper. Please correct me.
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2You might be interested in our sister site for English Language Learners– Matt E. ЭлленCommented Sep 9, 2014 at 11:02
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It depends on when the person was injured. Are you talking about a past incident, or in the present? Both forms could be acceptable and interchangeable, but under different circumstances one might be preferable over the other.– Mari-Lou ACommented Sep 9, 2014 at 11:28
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1 Answer
I've amended the focus of the question to the auxiliary verb because it's not hurt which is being asked about: it's whether to use Are you or Did you get (or maybe its near-relative, Were you).
If someone is hurt at some indeterminate point in the past, then the question you ask says something about their present state. It doesn't matter how far in the past the injury occurred — it could be only seconds, or several days or longer.
Are you hurt?
→ Were you hurt and are you still hurt?Did you get hurt?
→ Were you hurt at that point in the past?
Because the question "Are you hurt?" carries the implication of asking about the current situation (due to the use of the present tense), it really only makes sense to ask it if the injury is very recent, almost immediate.
Thus if you rush over to someone who has just fallen over, you would ask "Are you hurt?" rather than "Did you get hurt?" But if you know someone slipped on some ice last winter, you would ask "Did you get hurt?" because it's highly unlikely that they are still injured.
Note that "Did you get hurt?" requires that the time of the injury is in context. This might be done by the accident on the ice being the subject of the conversation, or being made contextual by adding it to the question: "Did you get hurt when you fell over last winter?"
answered Sep 9, 2014 at 11:35
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This is a good answer, but you don't address the fact that, as well as a difference in tense, "are you hurt?" refers to a state whereas "did you get hurt?" refers to an event. Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 13:11
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@starsplusplus "...the question you ask says something about their present state." "...you would ask 'Did you get hurt?' because it's highly unlikely that they are still injured."– Andrew Leach ♦Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 13:27
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@AndrewLeach The emphasis is on present, which implies that the other example says something about their past state (not, as is actually the case, a past event). The corresponding question asking about past state would be "Were you hurt?" not "Did you get hurt?" Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 13:50