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IKEA ran an ad in which a gallant husband shopping at IKEA relieves his wife and sends her off to pamper herself saying to her: "I got this." He then goes over to the IKEA floor rep and asks: "You got this, right?"
In the original version, the IKEA rep replies "I do got this." In a recent airing, I swear the IKEA guys words were changed to "I do have this."
The IKEA ad (original version)
First, can anyone corroborate that they changed the script to "I do have this"? Second, what are your thoughts on "I got this" and "I do got this"? Should they change / have changed it?
I just watched a current version, and he's definitely saying "I do have this." See: http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7LPF/ikea-you-got-this
And whether "I do got this" or "I do have this," if the "do" is emphasized (as it is in the video I linked), then I'm fine with it. That emphasis provides extra assurance from the clerk that he can do what the guy wants. Good salesman. 
Heimhenge said
I just watched a current version, and he's definitely saying "I do have this." See: http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7LPF/ikea-you-got-this
This afternoon I looked for and listened to every IKEA ad I could find and I could not find what Glenn describes. Now I'm wondering what Heimhenge hears or sees that I can not. This one looks and sounds like every other one I saw.
Tromboniator said: To my ears (and eyes) these are identical ...
Well now you've got me wondering too. So I went to those two sources (Vimeo and YouTube), played each ad again, and recorded the audio in my favorite audio analysis app Sound Forge. The comparison of the two is shown below. The word "have" (or "got") is the waveform in the highlighted area.
http://www.heimhenge.com/downloads/comparison.jpg
Slight differences are due to the different encoding methods used by Vimeo and YouTube. Vimeo is generally higher quality. Sound 1 (top) is Glenn's originally-cited ad, and Sound 2 (bottom) is the version I found on YouTube (where I thought I heard "have"). When I play the two versions alternately, it now seems I can hear either word in either version, depending on which I'm expecting. This is likely an example of expectations coloring what I heard. Probably related to the same psychology that drives the McGurk Effect.
Curiously, the highlighted word does not show the typical burst of higher harmonics one would expect with the plosive "G" and suggests the word is "have" aot "got." On the other hand, it could be that, as Tromboniator suggests, the clerk just doesn't enunciate clearly. Also curious, when I loop that single word in isolation from the rest it sounds like "have," but when I loop it with the preceding word ("do") included, it sounds more like "got." Not sure why that would make any difference. Would probably require seeing a copy of the script to know for sure which word is really used.
If you want to try what I did, those two WAV files are available for download here: Sound 1.wav, Sound 2.wav.
For the record, I think both of these samples say "I do got this." Still, I swear the last time I heard the commericial live it was altered. By the way, I rarely watch live TV, and thus usually skip over commercials during the DVR playback, so I don't get much exposure to TV commercials. The original use of "I do got this" caught my attention. That's why I noticed what I think was the alteration of the script.
After I heard it altered, I saw there was some internet chatter about the usage, and a lot of complaints. I still wonder if IKEA caved and voiced it over. When I fast forward over the commercials, I will try to keep an eye open for these actors to see if I can get another clear hearing.
If that clerk is really saying "got" then he's definitely slurring the pronunciation. I tried another experiment with Sound Forge, and when I pronounce the two words ("got" and "have") in isolation, the waveforms look very different. But when I predicate them with "do" the waveform for "got" appears much less plosive. So maybe it has to do with the transition between different mouth shapes affecting that plosive characteristic?
I just took the time to view both IKEA ads. In the original ad the clerk answered with using the language phrase that the customer used. Which made the clerk's responds more catchy to the listeners. In the second ad, the clerk's answer seemed to me that it did not go with the phrase as much as before. Even though the second phrase seemed more correctly said. Many times when reading information we have all transmitted it in some form or fashion.
Try as I might, through dozens of listenings and watchings, I cannot hear "have", only "got" in both versions. In fairness to the clerk, there's not much of a "g" in the customer's first "got", either. If I have time later today I'll check out Heimhenge's waveforms, and compare them with those from different software. Not that I expect to prove anything; just because it's fun.
No, they should not change the ad, complaints notwithstanding. In order to "fix" it we'd wind up with something like:
CUSTOMER (to wife/partner): I'll take care of this matter.
CUSTOMER (to clerk): Are these items in stock?
CLERK: Yes, these items ARE in stock.
Keep it colloquial. It's the only thing that gives this ad any merit at all.
Hours later: I'm thoroughly convinced that these recordings are identical except for quality, and it's "got" straight through.
Yes, definitely 'I do got this'. The clerk says a somewhat fricative /g/, pretty much /ɣ/. Acoustically, the giveaway is the final /t/. A long silence before the /þ/ on 'this'. If he had said 'I have this', there would be no silence. It might be hard to distinguish the boundary between /v/ and /þ/, but the voiced frication would start instantly after the vowel.
Clever casting by the ad producers. The clerk looks foreign, maybe Persian or Pakistani. So we expect his English to be slightly odd, and we're unsure if he's just talking the way he normally talks, or trying to be funny. Forces us to think about the situation longer than we would if he looked more Anglo.
Since this post, and only since, I've noticed in the show Dexter (about Miami police) they say 'what do we got?' all the time.
Actually it's always there- got as a fixed verb, never conjugated.
As often with this kind of realization, I feel weirdly 'insecure,' as if someone is corrupting my own private 'paradigm.'
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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