Can I ask: Is it better to say “We’ve got to get going” or “ We have to get going”?
I hear the former in conversation and it slightly irks me. I think it’s because of the redundancy (?) in the sentence. Which is better, grammatically? The latter feels cleaner. Am I wrong?
My wife misheard the lyrics in the Wizard of OZ. (English is her second language.) It probably struck me as funnier than it should have, but she was causally singing, “We have to see the Wizard!” instead of “We’re off to see the Wizard!” Somehow cracked me up that some higher authority had dictated that they must see the Wizard but they were still so stoked about going.
Neither are wrong. The former is more common in America and is more casual. Funny, because the general rule is that for two phrases that mean the same thing, the more wordy statement usually the more polite.
Not a linguist by any measure, but it seems that you should use just “have” when writing, but that it will seem more natural to use “have got” when speaking.
I’m not the guy to explain why this is, but want to be sure you get some kind of feedback for your post. Hope it helps!
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