[Ads-l] to (have) got this

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Jan 25 02:58:55 UTC 2018


Interesting behavior under negation.  From last night’s season premiere of “The Detour”, Nate (Jason Jones) and his wife Robin (Natalie Zea) and their kids are on the run and assuming new identities in a small town in Alaska. Nate, who is pretending to be a roller coaster expert (don’t ask), is called on to figure out which is the correct wire to splice out of a messy box filled with different colored wires to stop an out of control Ferris wheel with kids on board. 

Local guy with red beard and ponytail, opening control box to reveal dozens of multicolored interlacing wires: “Oh…That is a big old mess of crap in there, isn’t it?"
Nate: "Oh shit, it could be any of them.”
Red beard, handing Jones wire-cutters: “Good luck, man."
Robin: “No, you got this.”
Nate: “I don’t got this.”

LH


> On Jan 24, 2018, at 8:58 AM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Urban Dictionary entry for "I got this" from 2006:
> 
> ----
> https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%20got%20this
> I got this
> An expression that's short for:
> 1. I got this covered.
> 2. I got this handled.
> 3. I got this under control.
> WORKER: I can't talk to that guy. He feels I'm all game.
> TEAM LEADER: Don't worry. I got this.
> ----
> 
> The only dictionary I see that treats the expression explicitly is the
> Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, but only with "you" as the subject:
> 
> ----
> https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/you-you-ve-got-this
> _you/you've got this_
> mainly US informal
> used to tell someone that you believe they can or will succeed in dealing
> with something:
> "I know you can lose that weight! You got this!"
> ----
> 
> --bgz
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 7:38 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> I began noticing this about ten years ago. FWIW.
>> 
>> JL
>> 
>> On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 10:47 PM, Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> A quick glance at Wiktionary, the English Oxford Living Languages and the
>>> HDAS doesn’t yield this expression. It means “will handle this
>>> challenge/problem right now."
>>> 
>>> With the third person plural and the ass pronouns, I think the ’s of
>>> “have” is obligatory, though I’m probably wrong:
>>> 
>>> s/he’s got this
>>> my ass/your ass, etc. ’s got this
>>> 
>>> With the other persons, I think “have” is skipped:
>>> I/you/we/you guys/they got this
>>> 
>>> The OLL does have, under “get”:
>>> Succeed in attaining, achieving, or experiencing; obtain.
>>> 
>>> ‘I need all the sleep I can get’
>>> ‘he got a teaching job in California’
>>> 
>>> Both Wiktionary and OLL (the latter cited here) have:
>>> Respond to a ring of (a telephone or doorbell)
>>> 
>> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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