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I didn't know they were gonna send a death squad!

Hang on!

Hey, we got ourselves a winner! Don's got it over here.

Look out!

We lost them! Good job, stranger from the cornfields!

and

Darcy! - Joshua!

We got three more coming in from that way! Bee, where's Tessa?

Dad!

We got a real dilemma here. Okay? I created incredible robots.

It's all designed to kick that fat Transformer's ass. So, really, this is a no-win situation.

and

Come on! We gotta move now!

Go, go!

We got hostiles coming down the street!

Go!

Bee! Twelve o'clock! Cover fire!

We're surrounded! Hustle, hustle, hustle!

These lines are taken from Transformers Age of Extinction 2014

I know these "got" actually mean "have got" in conversation, but I wonder if these three sentences could be replaced with the following respectively in the same context:

We have a winner!

Three more are coming in from that way!

Hostiles are coming down the street!

Any semantic nuances suggested?

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  • Are you asking if any nuances in the originals are being lost in your replacements?
    – TimR
    Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 17:09
  • Yes, that's my intent. @Tim
    – Kinzle B
    Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 17:11
  • 2
    The (broad-brush) characterization of the speaker is lost.
    – TimR
    Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 17:14
  • @TimRomano Precisely. Post it, Timmo.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 17:15
  • Could you expand on that? @Tim
    – Kinzle B
    Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 17:17

2 Answers 2

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What subtle semantic difference exists between "We got ourselves a winner" and "We have a winner"?

There's the difference in tense. "We got ourselves a winner" is a past tense construction, closer in meaning to "we obtained a winner for ourselves". In "we have a winner", nothing in the sentence itself marks that there was a time before we had the winner. In "we got a winner", there is an implication that there was a time before we had the winner, and possibly an implication that obtaining the winner was a sudden occurrence.

This distinction is easier to see if we add an ambiguous "just":

  • We just have a winner.
  • We just got a winner.

In the first, the "just" can't refer to time. It only makes sense as "we merely have a winner". In the second, the "just" could refer to time. It may mean "we merely got a winner" but it more likely means "we very recently got a winner."


What subtle semantic difference exists between "We got three more coming in" and "Three more are coming in"?

Here, I take "got" to mean "discovered". The meaning is closer to "we are aware of three more coming in", implying that there may be more which we have yet to observe.

This particular use is common in military diction, where "got" and "lost" refer to the visibility of a target. I would expect to hear "we got a winner" in general conversation, but I only expect to hear "we got hostiles" in a combat situation.

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We got ourselves an answer!

The (broad-brush) characterization of the speaker is lost.

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  • 2
    This may be correct, but I don't understand it. Can you plz elaborate on it?
    – Kinzle B
    Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 17:24
  • I believe he's talking about the character of the movie: he or she has lost something that makes him or her unique in your replacement. This is something that subtitles and translations struggle with a lot (and why Japanese anime often has many different subtitles to choose from; the nuances of Japanese are hard to translate into English and vice versa).
    – Crazy Eyes
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 21:32
  • Sorry, I still didn't get it. What do you mean by "he or she has lost something that makes him or her unique in your replacement."? @CrazyEyes
    – Kinzle B
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 21:50
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    @KinzleB I think this answer means something like "The version with we got has the same meaning but makes the speaker sound like they're in the military."
    – user230
    Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 1:59
  • I really can't make it any clearer. People have certain things that make them unique; it's why we're not all robots. Do I need to explain why people are different?
    – Crazy Eyes
    Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 21:37

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