h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi, I enjoyed reading through these comments about the quirks of the English language and thought I would add a little something.

Eeyore mentions the many meanings of the verb 'to set', and it got (or should that be 'set'? ha-ha!) me thinking about the incredibly versatile verb 'to get'.

Followed by an adjective, there are surely dozens of possibilities, from getting drunk, getting run over by a car, getting to hospital in time to get the necessary treatment, and hopefully all the way through to getting better.

In sport, you have to get ready and if you haven't got what it takes you may get thrashed!

When people get angry and want to get even, things can get nasty, but violence will get you nowhere! Just get a grip and if we're lucky, we'll get away with it.

I can tell that this is getting repetive, plus it's getting late and I don't want to get a reputation, so I'll get out of here and leave you to get on with whatever you were doing before.

Get while the getting's good, I say!

Interesting, Spaceman.

Being versatile isn't the same as having many meanings, of course.

I did a quick survey using my Chambers Dictionary and a ruler. Dividing the entries into definitions versus phrases and collocations in which the word is commonly used (Set meaning pace a broken bone in position for healing as opposed to "set point" in tennis, for instance) "set" has 8 inches of definitions and 10 inches of phrases while "get" is given 2 inches of definitions and 8 inches of phrases.

By this crude measure "get" isn't all that exceptional. "Dry" has 2 inches of definitions and 9 inches of phrases; "put" has 2 inches of definitions and 10 inches of phrases.

I've never measured a dictionary before. Amazing what you can get into when you're an h2g2 researcher.

Hon menshes please for:

Get stuffed

Get real.

- for illustrating the vitality of the Mother Tongue.

And for 'get' as a noun, usu. preceded by a pejorative adjective - a vulgarism. Upstarting or what?