'can I get...&...
 

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[Closed] 'can I get...'

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I thought it was either 'can I have' or 'can you get me...', rather than 'can I get...'

FOr example, 'can I GET a latte please' - for some reason this pisses me off. Have you been watching too much US TV? No, you can't get it, I'll get the ****er for you cos I work here.

Can we just go back to 'can I have a latte please' PLEASE?


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:30 pm
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[i]Can we just go back to 'can I have a latte please' PLEASE? [/i]

can we just go back to 'can I have a coffee please' PLEASE?


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:30 pm
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or Grab.

****ing Grab a sandwich in my local sarnie shop and Christine will kick your head in


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:31 pm
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shouldn't it be "please may I have a latte?"


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:31 pm
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anything but "can I get..." will do. Gggrrrr.


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:33 pm
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AndyP - I could not agree more.


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:33 pm
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I heard kids using this 'can I get' at Latitude this year. I was horrified and hope I've dragged me own kids up better than that! It's awful!


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:36 pm
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I thought it was a yoof thing, then one of my 40-something friends used it in a pub. The ever-evolving use of our language. It's why we're not French.


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:38 pm
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Surely "can I get" is only acceptable when the speaker is going to provide the item for themselves?

[i]Can I get a coffee?[/i]

[i]Yes - help yourself[/i]


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:39 pm
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shouldn't it be "please may I have a latte?"

Shudder. It's ALWAYS double espresso and 3 sugars 😈


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:39 pm
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It's not just the kids using it. Seems to be people from all walks of life. It's taking over...


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:39 pm
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[i]3 sugars[/i]

shudder


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:41 pm
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NAh, Please may I have a mug of tea with my Beans on. (UK) 😕

Cafe culture is bizz unless your outside the UK. 😳


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:48 pm
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Funny thing the English language isn't it. People the world over come up with different ways of using it. Some things catch on and somethings don't. What a crazy idea eh? Still, if it winds up flashy and his likes, I'll be using it. 😛


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 8:51 pm
 Mog
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I asked a woman in front of me in the cafe by work if she'd been served. She said she had and that she was 'waiting on a latte.'
'On' a latte??


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 9:19 pm
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I've found using 'please may I' to be very successful in the past.


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 9:31 pm
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You should really say "café latte" otherwise you might just get milk.


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 9:41 pm
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I'm more concerned that everybody uses "please" when they ask and "thanks" when they get - that's the most important bit.


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 9:56 pm
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there is a lot of people on here that can't spoke right.
there is also a lot of people who clearly have not enough things to worry about. (choice of tyres and who may or may not be reading the daily mail etc)


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 10:03 pm
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I think if you're getting annoyed about what other people are saying in the queue for coffee, you've probably had sufficient coffee already, and should leave the shop...


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 10:06 pm
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'Take a p*ss' is another one - take it where? You're English, you bell end, not American! You 'have' a p*ss, not take one. Give me bloody strength!


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 10:47 pm
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yeah, you 'take a [i]leak[/i]'

and as for "better than half price" - better for whom? The customer or the retailer? The correct arrangement of words is "Less than half price", or is that too difficult?

"can I get?" of course you can, that's why you came here isn't it, you dolt?


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 10:51 pm
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I am a mild mannered person but I have taken to conducting a one man war on the sh1t writing standards in the Wellington paper.

Yesterdays brilliant sport headline read "Dye has been cast for All Blacks in crucial test". And Dye/All Blacks most certainly was not a pun.

DYE ! w..t...f, DICE my friend or DICES could work, plural of DIE. Their copy editor emailed me back and said "Thanks, didn't know that !!!" A COPY EDITOR FFS.
I only buy it as it is thick and gives me plenty of paper to light the log burner...


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 10:57 pm
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usually "the die has been cast" refers not to a die (multiple - dice, often a cube but sometimes 4 or more faces, all numbered) but to the process of casting, usually something in a mould.

Never bought a "die-cast metal" Dinky or Corgi model?


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 11:02 pm
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'Take a p*ss' is another one - take it where? You're English, you bell end, not American! You 'have' a p*ss, not take one. Give me bloody strength!

you want to "have" a piss - in the same way that terra wants to "have" a coffee ? 😯 😳

next time I do a piss I'll bottle it for you


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 11:03 pm
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@jojoA1 - as my wife very nearly found out in Italy this year!

The barista asked her again with a puzzled look if she wanted just milk - as an Aussie with very limited foreign language skills, she looked to me for help only to find me biting my knuckles trying not to laugh!! Fortunately she saw the funny side; and didn't make that mistake again for the rest of the week.

There was a very good interview I read ages back with a Quebecois who wanted to know what the deal was with "taking a s**t" (it was in relation to many of his American colleagues stirring him up about his English when he was first learning) - says much about how barstardised the English language is!


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 11:21 pm
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can I get a witness ?
to pointless head-in-the-sand-lingistic-foot-dragging...

Here's how it works: you get to choose how [b]you[/b] speak. Everyone else has the same choice. You are also allowed to pretend you don't understand people who use idioms you dislike, if you're an arse 🙂


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 11:25 pm
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simonfbarnes - Member
can I get a witness ?
to pointless head-in-the-sand-lingistic-foot-dragging...
Here's how it works: you get to choose how you speak. Everyone else has the same choice. You are also allowed to pretend you don't understand people who use idioms you dislike, if you're an arse

I'm an arse, then, 'cos I don't have a [i]clue[/i] what the first two lines are supposed to mean.
A witness? To what, pray tell?


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 11:34 pm
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simonfbarnes has it, or gets it, or takes it. Get me?

BTW, it's lattay not lartay, you aspirational bean juice suckers.


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 11:35 pm
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'cos I don't have a clue what the first two lines are supposed to mean.

the first line is a quote from a 1963 hit song by Marvin Gaye 🙂
the 2nd is in English


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 11:37 pm
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Do the haters still regret the Great Vowel Shift, I wonder..?


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 11:55 pm
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Yes. Southern fashion-led ponces.
😛


 
Posted : 29/10/2009 11:57 pm
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you got me a latte, [u]right[/u]...GRRR! what the hell is that supposed to infer? i just want to answer-WRONG


 
Posted : 30/10/2009 12:05 am
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what the hell is that supposed to infer?

might you mean "imply" ??


 
Posted : 30/10/2009 12:20 am
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whatever 😉

Writers frequently misuse infer when imply (= hint at; suggest) would be the correct word—e.g.: “And no team is, of course, inferring [read implying ] that Dallas isn't talented.” ( New York Times; Jan. 12, 1996.) Remember: a speaker or writer implies something without putting it expressly. A listener or reader infers beyond what has been literally expressed. Or, as Theodore Bernstein put it, “The implier is the pitcher; the inferrer is the catcher.” ( The Careful Writer; 1965.) Stylists agree that the important distinction between these words deserves to be maintained


 
Posted : 30/10/2009 12:28 am
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whatever

what, you mean like "people can express themselves whatever way they like" ??


 
Posted : 30/10/2009 12:30 am