Clara and Charles – affectionately known as CD (“clever drawers”) – appeared in front of an audience telling stories about their first meeting, courtship and marriage of ten years. NIKKI- But if you’re not feeling in the mood you’re like, well what have I got to give to this conversation. The formula for constructing this type of sentence is present auxiliary plus past participle, not present aux. plus past tense. Jon and Lucia, do you teach your students to say “ Today, I have saw a car or I have ate a pizza, today?” Well, if not, then please don’t teach them to use have-present aux. with got-past tense verb. Even though I, myself, often use it for comic, emphatic or obvious, grammar-abandoning reasons, or, even, simple laziness, I would never use it in the classroom or use it when teaching, unless as an example. For a non-English speaker learning English for the first time, surely it is easier / more straightforward for them learn ‘I have’ rather than ‘I have got’ (which opens up a whole complicated can of worms regarding mashed-up tenses and irregularities etc.)?

NIKKI- Have you ever regretted talking about your mental health? I kind of liken it to when you’re disabled and you openly talk about something to do with disability and then loads of people want you to talk about it all the time, in that way? PAUL- Yeah, absolutely. We know of people who have had to separate from their close family. It’s drastic the measures that have to be taken. But the consequences of not taking those actions don’t bear thinking about. Ultimately, I think it’s important to inform your students that both versions are commonly and widely used (and therefore acceptable) and that they should use whichever feels more comfortable to them. Students need to be aware that both are used – because they WILL encounter them both! If you don’t want to teach that the present perfect is also used to describe possession in this case because it confuses you or because you don’t think your students need to know that’s fine. Please don’t, however, say that English grammar strictly states that ‘have got’ is incorrect and rightly so when that is simply not the case. Using have got when it means simple ownership is plain lazy. I’VE GOT A CAR vs. I HAVE A CAR….I HAVE A CAR is correct. We have gotten lazy and laziness becomes the norm. I’ve got a car is easier to say than I have a car. Try it, it is true. The incorrect version has been used so often that even grammarians don’t know what the correct usage is any longer. Language evolves, and it often evolves out of constantly repeating an error. “Got milk?” This question is grammatically incorrect. The question actually is Do you have milk? Have you got cheating on your mind? Wrong. Do you have cheating on your mind? Correct. This error has become so commonplace that it has become acceptable. This is sad, really. This goes to show you that anyone can change language by just repeating errors. What happened to rules? Someone has to know how to use grammar correctly, and correct grammar should be used, especially in formal communication between companies and nations. Incorrect usage makes one look really, really silly. ReplyIt seems that some of you are of the opinion that have got (to mean have) is just “lazy” and/or “wrong”. Furthermore, it seems that no amount of evidence to the contrary would convince you otherwise. Seriously, please stop spreading misinformation. It’s your goddamn job to teach English as it IS spoken, not as you would have it spoken. English grammar did not come down on freaking stone tablets from heaven. It’s what’s embodied in the actual speech patterns of the people who use English, nothing more. (Side note: Different speech or writing communities have different practices, and there are practical social consequences to following different standards.) Saying “I’ve got a sister” is not only redundant (one extra word) and violates grammatical categories (being neither truly past simple nor past perfect), it also sounds ugly. Doesn’t it grate on your ears? Just constantly hearing the word ‘got’ (which is usually pronounced with a glottal stop – like ‘GOK’). Today I GOK out of bed yeah, and GOK to work so late yeah, and now I’ve GOK so much work to do yeah, but that’s what we GOKa do yeah…

In that original series, John Alderton and Pauline Collins had starred as husband and wife Charles and Clara Danby. Here, Donal Donnelly and Liza Goddard were husband and wife Matthew and Lily Browne. HUW- I will worry about it. And I will worry about it because, I’ve been doing the job for years and years and years, I’ll worry about it because I’ll think I don’t want people to think that I’m losing my touch or that I’m losing my ability to do the job or that I’m losing my mental sharpness or whatever else. I do worry about it. I think that’s all a good sign. It’s a good sign that you still have the appetite to do the job well. But I’m also aware that as the years go by it is right to make room for younger people and it is right to give encouragement to younger people. And also, this is something that doesn’t happen very often at the BBC by the way, to transfer some skills. They dropped me in to present the Six all those years ago without a day of guidance, without a day of chat with any other presenter. You’re on a voyage of discovery by yourself, and you’re going to make mistakes. Liza Goddard and Donal Donnelly star in this sparkling sitcom which follows the romance and marriage of Matthew Browne, a struggling composer, and wife Lily. You’re wrong that ‘have got’ is the Present Perfect tense. The present perfect is used when something in the past is now relevant to the present, like ‘I’ve gotten the drinks – we can all leave now’. “I have got a sister” is neither the present perfect not the past simple; it’s basically (wrongly) using the form of present perfect to express a past simple meaning.No, Honestly was a comedy series about a husband and wife – struggling actor Charles and successful writer Clara Danby, the author of “Ollie the Otter” children’s stories. Matthew and Lily ... make a charming young couple, despite their differences and their occasional inability to see eye-to-eye. And although they're very much in love, they seem to encounter more than their fair share of obstacles and inconveniences, including visits from Lily's eccentric Russian family and Matt's dreaded mother, and a persistent scarcity of funds - not helped when Matthew's disapproving family decide to cut him off without a shilling... [show more]

It would be useful to know if students are penalised one way or the other for these alternative usages – because to win the game, it helps to know how to play the game! I bet this varies from place to place, examiner to examiner! To the person who said that ‘have got’ is ‘used naturally by nearly all native speakers’– that is simply not true. Reply NIKKI- Thingamabob job. Well, thank you so much. Please do get in touch with us, like our listeners have done this week, share your knowledge, that was good, and tell us your stories. Send us a WhatsApp message to this number 0330 123 9480, where you can also leave us a voice note. But remember begin your message with the word Access; that would be very much appreciated. NIKKI- It’s Access All, the BBC’s weekly disability and mental health podcast. I’m Nikki Fox and I’m in London. As an British/English native myself, I much prefer SAYING the (apparently) more ‘American’‘I have…’. To me, it sounds better.My personal approach to teaching have got (since that was what the OP was originally requesting) would be to say that it’s just a synonym for the present tense of have. Furthermore, it’s usually realized in the contracted form, as in I’ve got way too much time on my hands. In even more informal contexts, it the “ve” can be elided and you get the (cringeworthy, to my ear) I got way too much time on my hands. I would then point out that the usage is primary oral rather than written, and that in essays or other formal writing, it would be better to use have (lest your essay be drenched in red ink). I am a native English speaker, but when I went to England for the first time I was surprised at how much the word ‘got’ was used, and I was particularly irritated by how people kept on saying ‘I’ve got’ when what they really meant is “I have”.

Obviously, all the intervening combinations are also possible (e.g present perfect progressive ‘I have been watching’ etc.). The hard part is conceptualizing the logical situations in which such constructions are necessary. NIKKI- It’s the sort of isolation, isn’t it, and the family and the finance, it’s all of that combined, and the guilt. There’s so much to it, isn’t there? I have 2 post graduate degrees with heavy linguistic emphasis. I teach, study and live an academic life. I am anything but lazy… It is NOT Laziness to speak with shortened, grammically incorrect words and sentences. The point is to convey understanding through oral expression…if someone asks me if I have a car, I typically say, Yeah, i gotta car. My SOLE objective being to convey the idea of my personal car ownership. Shortening a thought in verbal communication is not lazy. It is efficient, effective and time-saving. It allows for more time to advance the conversation to new topics. It allows one to sound like a “normal” human being in informal social settings rather than a high-browed, elitist, academic stiff. Or perhaps to demonstrate non-lazy, verbal communication, we should respond, “Yes, I am the owner of an automobile” Problem of have, have got solved! Reply I think it would be the relentlessness of the rounds as you keep getting through and using your imagination every time. The pressure of coming up with the goods was harder than actually cooking. I loved being in the kitchen once I knew what I was doing. I must say, the time frames killed me! But I was pushing and pushing and pushing. It’s rare but we use it this way, and have been doing so for quite some time. Search Shakespeare (those of you who say have got is simply wrong and for ‘idiots’, bear in mind you’re calling Shakespeare an idiot), and you will find examples of have, have got, and have gotten, conforming with the usage I have described. ReplyFor many people the pandemic is still not over. One group known as the Forgotten 500,000 represents the half a million people across the UK, many of whom are still shielding, who have weakened immune systems, which mean they could become seriously ill or even die if they got COVID. Unfortunately vaccines just do not work for them. There are so many completely incorrect posts that it would be hard to know where to start if it weren’t for AARON’s blaze of ignorance lighting the way. I love his formula: Have got is not a “sloppy” mash-up of two words. It has the same meaning as our have, but it is treated as an irregular verb. Americans tend to use it less and simply do not teach as the correct form in OUR dialect. Saying that it’s wrong is like telling a Brit that saying “at weekends” is incorrect (other countries do not say “on” weekends… or pronounce the letter “Z” as Americans do, for that matter). The fact is that it is not wrong — it is just not what we are used to in this hemisphere. If you say ‘I’ve got this book that says…’, that’s acceptable (in spoken language), because ‘got’ still implies something that is relevant to the present moment (like I’m going to tell you something interesting from the book) and is usually something more temporary. But to say “I’ve got a sister” is plain nonsense. It should be “I have a sister”. A sister is something you either have or don’t. Problem is, Aaron my dear, that the simple past tense and the past participle ARE THE SAME THING FOR A REGULAR VERB – eg. work, worked, worked and in Brit English the past participle of ‘get’ is ‘got’, just as the simple past is also ‘got’. That’s just simple ignorance of another form of the language, But when he says: