Interesting question about English taught in French school

[HoneySuckleDreams]

No 3 Son came home a little annoyed about not getting any marks for a question he thought he had answered correctly in his English class.

Question: Does Anne have a Tennis racket?

His answer : Yes, she has one.

The answer the teacher wanted was : Yes, she's got one.

Apparently his answer was American not English.

I'm not berating the teacher, after all, she's got a diploma in teaching English so she must be right and he accepts the fact that he has to put down what they want to get the marks (no matter how much he thinks he's right)

However, can anyone tell me (pedants especially) what the difference is? I must admit, my English language theory is a bit wibbly wobbly and I couldn't explain to him as to why one answer is right and one is wrong.

 

 

[Pierre ZFP]

I was taught that the use of 'got' is to be avoided at all times as it's both ugly and American - let us not stray into the area of 'gotten'. Heaven forfend!!

I am definitely with your son on this.

'Yes, she has one' is correct

[andyh4]

This isn't going to help I am afraid, but I was always taught that "got" was a lazy persons word and could always be replaced by something better - just as your son has done.

 

EDIT: Pierre beat me to it.  He got there first!

[Pierre ZFP]

[quote user="andyh4"]

EDIT: Pierre beat me to it.  He got there first! [/quote]

No, no. I just responded first   [geek]

 

[Val_2]

My son has just finished his first of two years doing a Master's degree in english studies at university after gaining his first degree and for the past four years all the english taught whether it be grammar,literature or oral it has been american influenced so much so, my son had a row with one tutor about it was wrong to teach words that Europeans do not know from the standard curiculum english taught since collège. It seems many of the uni tutors these days go to the states to do further education andthem come home and inflict it on students and say there is no such thing as chips in the english language or culture and its only frites is downright wrong. My son is supposed to be training to teach either the military or in education but he has his own ideas on what they should know.

[FairyNuff]

[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]I was taught that the use of 'got' is to be avoided at all times as it's both ugly and American - let us not stray into the area of 'gotten'. Heaven forfend!! I am definitely with your son on this. 'Yes, she has one' is correct[/quote]

 

I have to agree. My primary school teacher would throw up her hands in horror if we used get, got or nice. She said it was lazy, and there is always a better way to say it. He could also have answered "Yes she does." If the teacher can't see that there are different ways of answering a simple question correctly, it says something about the teacher and also about the learning by rote which seems very often to be the French way.

Rant over!

FairyNuff

[EmilyA]

I think "she has one" is probably more common in American English; I would say "yes, she has got one". Gotten is, of course, American usage, but is also old English. As Bill Bryson says, we still use forgot and forgotten without even thinking about it.

[Rabbie]

[quote user="EmilyA"]I think "she has one" is probably more common in American English; I would say "yes, she has got one". Gotten is, of course, American usage, but is also old English. As Bill Bryson says, we still use forgot and forgotten without even thinking about it.[/quote]I disagree. To me "she has one" is good british english. I do feel that "got one" is fine in spoken English but not in written english unless it is very informal.

[EmilyA]

Have to agree to differ about the American / British usage and I think the difference is very marginal.

Given the question, "Has she got a tennis racket", then I can't for the life of me see what is "informal" about the reply, "Yes she has got one." I suppose you could say "Yes there is an object of that nature in her possession", but I am a member of the campaign for plain English!

[Cat]

[quote user="crazyfrog"]

Question: Does Anne have a Tennis racket?

His answer : Yes, she has one.

The answer the teacher wanted was : Yes, she's got one.

[/quote]

 

I feel that the use of got, in this example, is inelegant. 

Had the question been "Has Anne got a tennis racket" then the answer "yes, she's got one" or "yes she has got one" would both have been fine.

But the question was "does Anne have..." so, for me, the correct answer is "yes, she has..." or "yes, she does have..."

Interestingly, if the question had been posed in the past or future tense, the only possible (correct) answers would have been

Yes, she had one/Yes, she did have one or Yes, she will have one.  No gots allowed [geek]

[Théière]

I agree with Cat, inelegant. Considering the French I believe put a lot of store by how elegantly a person speaks as to their social status "got" falls short and what about the abbreviation "she's" surely bad grammar? I would be concerned as to what social status the children are being educated to, mushroom picking in the caves!

[EmilyA]

Have just remembered why I think has / have sounds American. It is the old story about the American saying to an English woman, "Do you have many children?", to which she replied, "Never more than one a year."

To the OP, I would say that there is nothing incorrect about the first answer; the joy of English is that it so rich and so flexible. This does make it very hard to teach, and is very hard for teachers trying to get across "rules".

There is nothing wrong with got / get, it is perfectly good English.

I think people need to remember that we are dealing with the written form of direct speech here. If we were talking about reported speech then the verb forms would be different. Abbreviations such as "she's" are fine in direct speech.

[woolybanana]

Both answers are somewhat pedantic in my view. I would have been happier with a simple "Yes, she has," but would also accept "Yes, she does."

[nomoss]

[quote user="crazyfrog"]

I'm not berating the teacher, after all, she's got a diploma in teaching English so she must be right

 

[/quote]

[:D]

[KathyF]

The silly thing about using "Yes, she has got one" is that you're actually adding a completely unnecessary word to the perfectly serviceable verb "to have".

[mint]

Ah, thank you, Kathy.  You have taken the words out of my mouth as I was just coming round to thinking that.

Got...yes, inelegant and tautologous (have I spelt that right) to boot.

[Will]

Writing as a magazine editor, who pays a lot of attention to clear and correct use of English and to good writing style, I would have to disagree with the teacher. Neither of the alternatives is wrong, in my opinion, but 'had' is much better English than 'got' in this context. If "she's got one" appeared in written copy sent to me by a contributor or a PR company, I would most likely edit it to "she has one". Neither of the two style guides I use (The Times and The Economist [short version]) have a definitive answer, though The Economist discourages the use of 'get', and is quite definite about avoiding unnecessary words.

I would agree with those who say that 'got' is inelegant, and it is often unnecessary.

[EmilyA]

So just out of interest, does "Do you have many children" sound OK to you?

[mint]

Yes, I see no problem.  Or even "Do you have any children....." because I guess not many people have many children these days?[:D]

[EmilyA]

Have just checked do you have / have you got, on some language forums. Agreement seems to be that "do you have" is more common in American English and "have you got" in British English. Some people seem to think that the AE form is becoming more common in the speech of younger British people. All agree that "have you got" is a spoken form and not normally used in written English, except in quotes from direct speech.

I think if the teacher wanted the BE response then s/he needed to ask the BE question!

[andyh4]

[quote user="EmilyA"]So just out of interest, does "Do you have many children" sound OK to you?[/quote]

 

No to be honest it doesn't.  I think the direct question in English would be "How many children do you have?"

 

I am however surprised that langugae forma seem to consider get as E English and have as A English - although got is often used (I still maintain bady) in the "Have you got any 4 inch nails?" context.  And note, also here, it is totally supperfluous the question remains exactly the same without the word got.

[Will]

[quote user="EmilyA"]So just out of interest, does "Do you have many children" sound OK to you?[/quote]

It depends on the context. The inclusion of the word 'many' implies that you are discussing large families. In less specific circumstances, I would go with "Do you have children?" or "Do you have any children?" (the word 'any' is, strictly speaking, superfluous, but makes the question sound a bit less blunt).

But these are very pedantic arguments. In conversational English, at least, the important thing is that the meanings of the question and answer are clear.

[Clarkkent]

This discussion reminds me of a "debate" among English pedants about a dialogue in "The King's Speech":

   Bertie: But I don't have a voice.

   Lionel: Yes you do!

The pedants maintain that Lionel should have said: Yes you have.

[quote user="crazyfrog"]

I'm not berating the teacher, after all, she's got a diploma in teaching English so she must be right and he accepts the fact that he has to put down what they want to get the marks (no matter how much he thinks he's right)

However, can anyone tell me (pedants especially) what the difference is? I must admit, my English language theory is a bit wibbly wobbly and I couldn't explain to him as to why one answer is right and one is wrong.

[/quote]

I assume the teacher is French. She will have learned her own language in the assurance that it has a perfect form whose purity is assured by the Academie Francaise. She may not realise that English has escaped the straightjacket of conformity and is living, flexible and changing. She is also lacking in perception if she does not realise that a native English speaker will always have a greater intuitive understanding of the language than she has.

[Rabbie]

[quote user="Clarkkent"]

This discussion reminds me of a "debate" among English pedants about a dialogue in "The King's Speech":

   Bertie: But I don't have a voice.

   Lionel: Yes you do!

The pedants maintain that Lionel should have said: Yes you have

[/quote]As a fully paid up member of the Pedants Club I think the pedants have got it wrong. Both forms are IMO perfectly acceptable in spoken English. Lionel's reply is just a shortened form of "Yes, you do have a voice"

[EmilyA]

Have just looked at Fowler's Modern English Usage on the use of "have got". He says that the OED calls it "familiar"usage. Fowler adds that despite this it has long been used by many good writers and that Philip Ballard in a "spirited defence of the usage", cites Dr. Johnson, Shakespeare, Swift and Ruskin and says that "The only inference we can draw is that it is not a real error, but a counterfeit invented by schoolmasters".

BTW the only reason I asked about the question "Do you have many children?", was because of my earlier post - Do you have many children / Never more than one a year. It was a joke....

Clearly have and have got are completely acceptable in modern English, where, as somebody has already said, clarity and understanding are the things that matter.