Get, Take or Have a Shower? It’s a Little Bit Regional

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Grace Snyder calling from Philadelphia.

Well, hello, Grace.

We’re glad to have you on the show.

What’s on your mind?

I’m so glad to be here.

I am calling about this phrase take a shower versus get a shower.

My fiance always says to me, oh, well, I’m gonna go get a shower and I always say, I’ll say I’m gonna take a shower.

Never have heard get a shower before.

Not sure if it’s like a local thing or whether this is more broadly spread, but I’ll always say to him, well, where are you getting when you get a shower?

And he’ll ask me what are you taking and it just makes me think what is the right way say it?

Well, we’re glad that you’re both showering.

Yeah.

Thanks for a good relationship.

Staying clean.

Let me ask you about your fella.

Is he from Southern New Jersey or the Delaware Valley, perhaps?

Yeah.

He’s from Philly.

His whole family, they’re from they’re from the Philly area.

So I guess close enough, although maybe some people would fight me on that.

And you’re from where?

Originally, I’m from Texas.

Ok.

But my family is from New York.

‘ Cause there is some…

A light regional variation on this.

A bunch of work has been done on this by people like Dale Koi, John Algio and and Yurita Gigparate.

All of these linguists really looking into whether you get have or take things, you know, when you have some variability.

So we can get have or take a shower or a bath and it’s not always the same everywhere.

But one thing I wanna…

I start out by saying is those verbs get have or take, they don’t really have a lot of semantic value.

They just indicate action.

You just kind of in parentheses, action is here.

More than they actually mean the thing.

So you don’t really have to take in other meanings of take.

And you don’t really have to get in other meanings of get.

But they do carry a tiny bit of semantic value, because it turns out that the get forms, GET, are about seizing an available opportunity.

You can kinda hear that.

The take forms are about intention and a physical act.

And the have forms are about being habitual or something that you experience.

And so there’s some subtle variations there and they’re not universal and there are plenty of exceptions.

But generally, those are the trends that we see.

But but I wanna talk about this regionality.

So we’re divided in The United States and then we’re divided across The Atlantic.

So in The United Kingdom and in most commonwealth English speaking countries outside of North America, they’re far more likely to say have a shower or have a bath.

Now do Yeah.

Sometimes take a bath or shower, use that verb instead.

So they say it often enough that it’s not too strange for them to hear it, but they’re far more likely just to say have a shower or have a bath.

But in North American English, that includes The US and Canada, we’re far more likely to take a bath or a shower, but there’s some exceptions to that.

In Southern New Jersey in the Delaware Valley, there’s this little pocket of people who are a tiny bit more likely to get a shower or bath than they are…

Than people in the surrounding areas are.

So they say GET GET instead of take or to have.

But…

And again, there’s no universals here.

We’re always talking about aggregate data and averages and tendencies.

So there are plenty of people that live in all these places who use the the verb that’s on the outs with everyone else around them.

That’s fascinating.

There are people who say I have to have a shower.

I’ve never heard that one either.

And I guess if it’s not North America Yeah.

Have a shower.

Yeah.

Or I’m going to…

It’s often a bit…

Some kind of form of future tense or some kind of construction indicates intention.

I’m going to have a shower.

I’m going to have a bath or I had a bath.

I had a shower.

Got it.

Ok.

So it is a regional thing then.

Yeah.

It’s got to regenerate.

So our old queries over the years show something really interesting.

So Martha and I have been gathering enough data for long enough time that we have information and it shows that the get a bath may actually appear outside of New Jersey…

Southern New Jersey and the Delaware Valley’ we do have people from The US South reporting that they use it, and people along the Appalachian Ridge reporting that they use it.

And this is all consistent with Scott Irish settlement patterns where the get a shower or get a bath actually occurs in those countries as well as well as in Northern England.

Again, not with huge frequency, but more often there than than in the rest of The United Kingdom.

That’s fascinating.

So it’s it’s really kind of about like where the people came from that sort of, you know, way back kind of is like determining it a little bit.

But it’s interesting that never thought about the fact those verbs…

They don’t really mean anything.

They’re just kind of there.

No.

Well, yeah.

They just kind of vaguely say some action goes here.

Oh, gosh.

Well, that’s fascinating.

Well, I guess it doesn’t really help me answer if one of us is right or not, but I can at least say that maybe I’m I’m in the majority, maybe.

Grace, does he listen to the show?

I’m gonna make him listen to this episode.

Well, I was gonna suggest that that if he doesn’t listen, you can just tell him that you were right, and he’ll never know.

Oh.

Oh.

That’s a better idea.

That’s actually better.

I’ll do that.

We we do welcome him as well.

We’ll we’ll welcome the get a bathers as well of the have a bathers or take a bathers.

That’s his spice to life.

Well, Grace, thank you so much for calling.

Thank you so much for having me.

This is wonderful and very informative.

Yay.

Call us again sometime.

Alright?

Yeah.

I will.

Have a good one.

Alright.

Bye.

Care.

Call or text anytime.

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