Today I opened my AOL mail account and this example of bad grammar went off in my ears like a car backfiring. We hear it so often that people barely understand that it is entirely grammatically incorrect. Many have come to think that it is correct.
What’s wrong with the ubiquitous “You’ve got mail“? This phrase is used in my own AOL account and shared by the blockbuster movie of the same name (which features this email relationship).
Even the most grammatically correct of us say “You’ve got to see this” but this is admittedly BAD GRAMMAR.
Let’s look at this verb by verb, beginning with the verb “(to) have“.
- The simple present tense of this verb would be “You have mail. (Come pick it up.)”
- The present perfect tense of this verb would be “You’ve gotten mail. (Why haven’t you opened it?)”
Let’s look at the verb “(to) get“.
- The simple present tense of this verb would be “You get mail (every day except Sundays).”
- The simple past tense would be “You got mail (yesterday).”
- The present perfect tense would be “You have gotten mail* (every day for the last 2 months. Why haven’t I?” * or “You’ve gotten mail…”)
So there is no such correct verb form for “You’ve Got Mail” at all! And yet we hear this composite of verb forms everywhere.
A word of advice: Avoid saying it! Instead of “You’ve Got Mail”, say “You Have Mail.” And instead of saying “You’ve got to hear this,” say “You have to hear this.
And if you are going to use it occasionally in conversation, be aware that it is not correct English and be able to use correct grammar when socially necessary. Speaking with bad grammar might mean you don’t get the job you are looking for, and more. And certainly never use it in writing. Unless, of course, you want to write copy for advertisements.
Stay tuned for a future podcast, where we discuss the advertising slogan, “Got Milk?” and why that too is grammatically incorrect.
It is not grammatically incorrect. The original past participle of get was gotten (get, got, gotten), and in America it still is. But the British have simplified it to got (get, got, got) so there is nothing wrong with the phrase “You’ve got mail.” To the American ear ‘got’ is simple past tense but more globally it can be either past or past participle. Look an a dictionary and you will see two correct forms of the past participle for get.
Your comments are welcome!
I think that a learner of English, living in America, functioning in America, would want to use the language that will do the most for him. On a practical level, using a questionable, or marginally correct, form would possibly raise eyebrows in a world in which he is trying to succeed. When talking to ones colleague, supervisor or boss, I would think that “You have mail” is preferable to “You’ve got mail”.
I have even bigger issues with “Got milk?”
“You have mail” is better, sure, probably even among the Brits, but the other isn’t wrong. There are many other verbs for which there are two correct forms such as dreamed and dreamt, one of which is more standard in American usage (dreamed). Still, “you’ve got” meaning “you have received” has become widely accepted globally.
But where is the justification to use “You’ve got to see this”? I think you are right that here a grammatically incorrect phrase has entered the language and become very widespread. While Merriam-Webster lists got only as the past participle of get, dictionary.com gives it a second meaning, an “auxiliary verb (informal): must; have got (fol. by an infinitive).”
First, now we’re getting into “You’ve got TO….”, which implies necessity.
Our prior conversation was about “You have” or “You’ve got” implying possession.
So we can shift for the moment to “You’ve got (plus infinitive phrase).
It would be interesting to trace the history of “you’ve got to ( )” back to its origins. It has clearly crept into the vernacular and dictionary.com is indicating it as “informal”.
I remember, from 1966, the great Otis Reading singing the following lyrics to his song, “Try a Little Tenderness”, :
you’ve got to
got to got to
you’ve gotta hold her
don’t squeeze her
never leaver her
you got
got got got to
now now now
got got got to
try a little tenderness
Perhaps I should create a new blog post with this topic!!! We can discuss “you have to see this” vs “you’ve got to see this” vs “you gotta see this”!
Writing and conversation teachers should be aware of this and present language in such a way as to help our students make the appropriate choices (or “switches”, as they are known in linguistic circles). Learning grammar from popular culture has its role and also its limits. This is one of the marks of fluency: Knowing when to use which forms in which social situations and being able to switch appropriately.
The case with dreamed and dreamt is one of alternate verb forms and both acceptable universally.
I’ve just spoken with somebody who interviews at a large successful international corporation. They hire only people of high caliber. I asked him: “If you had an applicant who said to you: “You’ve got my phone number….” and an applicant who said “You have my phone number….” would you take note of the difference? Would one be less attractive to you than the other?” And he answered, quickly, sharply and unequivocally, “Yes”.
A person looking to succeed in this country, in the United States, needs to understand the nuances of language. He needs to understand that the words that come out of his mouth, and the word forms and grammatical constructions that come out of his mouth, reflect on him and are part of the overall body of information that others perceive.
The license plate in Pennsylvania printed in 1986 read “You’ve Got a Friend in Pennsylvania”. It’s a very vernacular grammatical structure. Yes, not wrong, but also not always right. I was unhappy with this license plate, which was retired after one year.
We have to give our learners the awareness that there are limits to when certain forms can be used: A structure may be correct grammatically but incorrect contextually. We also have to provide them with the linguistic tools appropriate to each situation.
Got and gotten are equally accepted past participles of get, both equally correct. I insist that “You’ve got mail” is not grammatically incorrect — and not even an informal usage such as “You’ve got to see this.” I do agree that “You have mail” is better, but only because it is the more concise structure. For the same reason I would avoid “Mail has arrived in your incoming e-mail folder.” Which person would you be more likely to consider hiring, one who says “You have received my phone number,” or “You have my phone number”? Finally, I don’t understand why “You’ve got a friend” is not always right because it is vernacular; isn’t it the case that stuffy, pedantic language is equally ill-at-home in certain situations? If one is not always right, then why not the other?
You have received my phone number and You have my phone number are both grammatically correct and socially acceptable across the board. So this contrast is not analogous.
Vernacular may be in the eyes of the beholder but I believe not. Things creep into vernacular but the educated person will know when to use vernacular and when not to. A linguistically wise person will be able to use each when appropriate.
I – and many other linguistically wise people – would not say to certain people in certain formal situations, “Hey, how you doin’?” though I might say that to people whom I know casually and, like you said, at home when a friend telephones. But I would know not to use it in many other more formal situations.
This is one aspect of fluency that cannot be underestimated and as teachers we owe it to our students to teach all forms and teach the user to differentiate between them.
This has long troubled me, as well, and I’m with ESL. got and gotten are not interchangeable, except as it has evolved to be with the “dumbing down” of the language. Let’s try some substitutions: “You’ve got mail” is assumed to be an alternative for, “You have mail”. Simple present, as mentioned above. 1. Introducing, “got” changes the tense,(presumably to p.p.), so it is not the same, but nuanced differently. 2. In addition to failing to be a substitution of equal meaning, got and gotten are not words with identical meaning and grammatical usage, either. “You’ve gotten mail” is not the same as “You have mail”. Nor is, “You’ve got a friend in Pennsylvania” intended to mean “You’ve gotten a friend in Pennsylvania”. You’ve got to see the Grand Canyon ( You really MUST see the Grand Canyon) does not say the same thing as You have gotten to see the Grand Canyon (so now you can cross that off your bucket list.) While the latter is grammatically correct, it is conveying an entirely different message.
Lastly, and perhaps related to variation between British and American English, we Americans balk at using this contracted form without the comfort of “got”. “I’ve to get the mail now” or “You’ve a friend in Pennsylvania” seem to just sound wrong, or at least grandiloquent. We are simply unfamiliar with these locutions as contractions. Somewhere along the line “gotting them up” became more acceptable, but not correct.
Brian,
I appreciate your contributions to this discussion. “Got milk?” was a convenient advertising gimmick that both capitalized on how language manifested itself differently in different geographic regions and cultural/economic groups; but this type of marketing, which shows up in posters in libraries, bothers me because people who are trying to learn standard English in order to be better able to present themselves in work situations aren’t aware of its limits. Of course I’ve never figured out whether the question is “Do you have milk?” or “Did you get milk?”
As you pointed out, which learners of English should be aware of, there are many subtle points to the use of these words. “I’ve got to go” is a phrase of exigency, as the Beatles song, “Got to get you into my life.”
And we do balk at that contraction use. I tried it once in something I wrote and felt totally awful, but it’s somewhere on the internet and I’ll never undo it!
I think what makes it especially is the double use of words to show possession. Got and have basically describe the same thing – possession. You dont say “I dont not need” or “I want desire food.” You’ve got is plain and simple improper English. Accepted English but still improper.
Right. It’s so tricky because the improper use of “got” is so widespread as non-standard English that it’s difficult for learners of English who hear that all the time to get in the habit of using proper English. This is not “the Queen’s English.” It’s just proper standard English!
To the reader who wrote that “there is nothing wrong with “You’ve got mail” and implied that I am being irresponsible – and that I need to go back to school before I have an English language blog – in saying that there is:
You can question whether or not my grammar call is correct, but in my blog I approve only of comments that are respectful. A respectable dialogue, without insulting the other for having a different opinion, is more important than correct grammar.
That said, if you live in the United States, and you’re learning English as a second language, it’s important to learn the difference between idiomatic language and standard formal language and I feel an obligation to help learners to understand these distinctions. A native speaker has the ability to switch from one to another, as called for, and it’s important for those learning English to be able to appropriately shift from one social linguistic cloud to another. Much language is nuanced and it’s not always about “right” and “wrong” but situational appropriateness and even regional appropriateness.
The language of advertising is meant to appeal to a broad spectrum; it is not necessarily standard American English and should not necessarily be imitated and established as language to be imitated by those trying to learn American English and get ahead.
I stand by my call. The preferable and standard American English language would be “You have mail.”
Thank you for this! I thought “You’ve got mail” was wrong, but it’s so ubiquitous that it sounds right, and I wasn’t sure even though am a native speaker of American English and a writer, too. This is also a trademarked phrase (originally trademarked by AOL, now owned by OATH). One of the requirements for a trademark is that the phrase be unique, and one of the best ways to get a unique phrase is to use bad grammar. “Got milk” is also a trademark, so in both cases, the company trademarking the phrase would have to show that it wasn’t being used anywhere else. The fact that it is bad grammar makes more sense now because it would be much less likely to be in common use. I found this article looking for the answer to this and I’m very glad I found it! 🙂
Thank you, Claudia, for the wonderful insight and for sharing it with us all. Perhaps I should do a post on “Got milk?” and why that’s also bad grammar. Catchy but bad!