"Made" vs "Got"

[BMBPSU2008]

No doubt whatever words each region or dialect uses is mainly a product of what their parents used and what their parents' parents used, etc.

I think I can understand using the verb "to get" and "to make" to refer to grades. However, I think "to get" is probably more grammatically correct. In a class, there are exams and other assignments that the student participates in and is then judged on. The grade is a determination by someone other than the student that is then given to the student as an evaluation and feedback on their performance. The student's efforts certainly help make their grade, but ultimately it is the teacher's choice which grade to award. Thus the student really receives the grade -- i.e. "to get".

As for "to take" or "to write" an exam, I think the former, "to take," is more appropriate. "To write" in reference to an exam is definitely more of a non-American usage. When you have an exam, it is something that has been written by someone else. The student supplies answers to the questions on the exam, but they do not craft the exam itself. So while there is writing involved on the part of the student, that writing is the answers, not the exam itself. Hence, I think "writing" an exam does not sound appropriate. Since someone else generates the exam/questions, it is reasonable to use a verb that indicates that there is a recipient and answerer of the exam questions, hence "to take."

I'm with you on that one. Both "get" and "make" are slang, replace them with their "more correct" counterparts.

Get would be replaced with receive.
----- I received an A. ------

While make would be replaced with produce.
----- I produced an A. ------

Even that way get/received just sounds better.

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[Drogba]

I don' gaht mah'self an A in dat der class. Yes'sir, I did.

Thats what they taught me in the south.

 

[KeyzerSoze]

As for "to take" or "to write" an exam, I think the former, "to take," is more appropriate. "To write" in reference to an exam is definitely more of a non-American usage. When you have an exam, it is something that has been written by someone else. The student supplies answers to the questions on the exam, but they do not craft the exam itself. So while there is writing involved on the part of the student, that writing is the answers, not the exam itself. Hence, I think "writing" an exam does not sound appropriate. Since someone else generates the exam/questions, it is reasonable to use a verb that indicates that there is a recipient and answerer of the exam questions, hence "to take."

The expression originally referred to essay exams which were actually written by the student.

 

[bodonid]

I'm fixing to go to med school in my home state of GA.

I catch myself using this colloquialism every now & then. Does this seem foreign to anyone?

 

[zpiff]

The A was bestowed upon me?

 

[bodonid]

they don't say "cut the lights," they say "cut OFF the lights" or "cut the lights off," as opposed to "turning" off the lights, and in some places it's "switching" the lights off.

I say cut the lights. I also say cut off the lights, but cut the lights sounds more better to me. For serious.

 

[Geekchick921]

I'm from Wisconsin:

"I got an A"

"I got a soda"

"I swept the floor" (if with a broom) "I vacuumed the floor" (if with a vacuum

Definitely "rubber band"

"I took the MCAT".

I'm from Philly. Same thing here. I've lived here pretty much all my life, but I can't stand it when people around here say "youse". Drives me crazy. I blame the voice & speech classes when I was a theatre major.

Am I the only one that thinks, "I made a B," sounds like a euphemism for something you do on the toilet?

 

[Auron]

I was conferred an A.

 

[BMBPSU2008]

I'm from Philly. Same thing here. I've lived here pretty much all my life, but I can't stand it when people around here say "youse". Drives me crazy. I blame the voice & speech classes when I was a theatre major.

Am I the only one that thinks, "I made a B," sounds like a euphemism for something you do on the toilet?

I don't know, I thought making fudge had something to do with chocolate.

 

[justme456]

I say both.

 

[RySerr21]

I say cut the lights. I also say cut off the lights, but cut the lights sounds more better to me. For serious.

no matter where you are in this country you shouldnt say "more better" 😉

 

[BMBPSU2008]

Pittsburgh? your vocabulary "needs fixed."

what's fascinating to me is how shocked and undone some people get because someone uses a different word---dodger, you actually didn't know what they meant when they asked what you "made"? dayum, prepare yourself for the outside world!

what do they say on TV shows? got or made? that's Uhmerrican!

😆My girlfriend always asks me what time do I "want up" (to be woken up). What makes Pittsburgh think they don't need verbs in their sentences?

 

[169817]

I typically say got for singular classes, or "made A's" for multiple classes or a whole term's worth.

 

[bodonid]

no matter where you are in this country you shouldnt say "more better" 😉

pretty sure you knew this, but I was joking.

 

[RySerr21]

pretty sure you knew this, but I was joking.

thats why i winked

 

[LadyLightning20]

I think you "make" A's and B's, but you "get" anything below that 🙂

👍

 

[tacrum43]

definitely "made" in Cali

Um, no. I'm also suspicious, because real Californians don't say "Cali". 🙂

 

[howdy2u]

Um, no. I'm also suspicious, because real Californians don't say "Cali". 🙂

First of all, the word "got" sounds like you're from the F^&%ing IE...perhaps Fontana?

And YES, REAL Californias can say "Cali" when they're on the phone and/or web with out-of-staters.

 

[inaminute]

And YES, REAL Californias can say "Cali" when they're on the phone and/or web with out-of-staters.

only if you are in the Britney Spears Fan Club

 

[Rotinaj]

Make implies that I earned my grade through merit.

Got implies that the instructor graded me on a whim.

I however like to say that I earn A's, I don't recieve them.

 

[Asp]

I'm with you on that one. Both "get" and "make" are slang, replace them with their "more correct" counterparts.

Get would be replaced with receive.
----- I received an A. ------

While make would be replaced with produce.
----- I produced an A. ------

Even that way get/received just sounds better.

WOw, I learn something new everyday on SDN. "Get" and "make" are slang..

 

[GoldShadow]

WOw, I learn something new everyday on SDN. "Get" and "make" are slang..

And don't you forget it.


But seriously, I think in the context that we're using them in (ie, grades) they would be considered regional vernacular; therefore, Rotinaj is right if we want to use 100% formal/correct English.

 

[Asp]

And don't you forget it.


But seriously, I think in the context that we're using them in (ie, grades) they would be considered regional vernacular; therefore, Rotinaj is right if we want to use 100% formal/correct English.

In all seriousness, what the guy did was substitute in synonyms for "get" and "make" in their "100% formal" senses.

"get"-->"received"
"make"-->"produced"

That's like replacing "use" with "utilize" and then saying "use" was slang.

 

[tacrum43]

First of all, the word "got" sounds like you're from the F^&%ing IE...perhaps Fontana?

And YES, REAL Californias can say "Cali" when they're on the phone and/or web with out-of-staters.

Geez, you don't have to get so angry about it. 🙄

I'm guessing IE = Inland Empire. While I'm not from there, I'm sure you'll still have a problem with me since I'm from Northern California.

However, I have to say that after living in the Bay Area, north of Sacramento and on the Central coast, I've yet to hear any Californian say they "made" a grade.

 

[Timmythemic22]

I made a boom boom.

 

[JaysWay]

Get... to recieve, as in to recieve an overall evaluation of your work over the course of the class from your professor.

Make...to produce, as in to produce a letter grade from...(studying and test taking/ blood and tears/ papier-mache)?

This one is pretty easy

 

[orthomodel]

Born and raised in Louisiana (Looziana, Weeziana, etc.)

I 'got' an A. I do say 'made' sometimes.

I 'took' the MCAT.

I try not to drink 'soda.' When I met my friend from Cleveland she said 'pop' and I was like WHAT is THAT? And everytime after that I would correct her so now she says soda. My peeps in the dirty south call it 'soda water' with a thick southern Louisiana accent.

I do not say lollipop, I mean come on who says that? Kidding. I say 'sucker' or call it by its brand name.

I've grown out of saying 'tennis shoes' and I now just say sneakers.

I sometimes say 'toilet tissue' instead of 'toilet paper.'

My peeps say 'cut on/off the lights' but I just say 'turn them on/off.' HOWEVER, if some utility gets turned off, I do say 'it got cut off' as in 'they cut off my phone yesterday.'

My family in Louisiana says 'fixing to go' and my peeps in TX say 'finna go.' It's so funny cause my mom was making fun of my TX relatives like they were totally dumb for saying 'finna' when she sounded just as goofy by correcting them and saying 'fixing to.'

I've also heard people say 'alls I gotta do is...' as opposed to 'all I gotta do is...' I don't know what region that's native to.



I listen to a BBC radio station and I always find their speech amusing 'cause it's so different and inferior to the good ole' American way of speaking.

trainers=sneakers

i'm revising=i'm studying

maths & english=math & english

oi=hey

tube=subway

laurie=18-wheeler

20 quid=20 bucks


Ah those Brits and their wacky accents.

 

[TexanGirl]

my spouse is from Michigan and calls it a sucker. Sorry, it ain't Texan. "Sneakers" is used all over the country, too.

and it's pretty silly to think a person in Alabama would be "flabbergasted" by hearing "pop." It's not an isolated state nor is it full of untraveled, poorly-read ignorant people, no matter what people from NYC think. Ditto Texans hearing "pie." I think most Americans are able to slog through dialectical quirks more easily than you give them credit for.

I never said it was exclusive to TX. It may very well be used in Michigan too for all I know; however, I do know the vernacular of NYC well enough to claim that suckers and tennis shoes are not part of the daily vocabulary for people there. I don't know why it's so hard to believe that pockets of the country favor different terminology for the same words. Tennis shoes = predominant in the South, and sneakers = predominant in NYC, my friend.

You're extrapolating too much from what I said. One, being flabbergasted is nothing negative in itself. It doesn't signify ignorance and lack of worldliness like you believe. My experiences with people reacting to my sayings have been overwhelmingly positive and amusing for both parties. Two, yes, while not every Alabaman will be flabbergasted or even react to you saying "pop," the point is it's not part of the regional lexicon--it is, by nature, something very different and, therefore, something people will be keen to react to. I don't know if that's positive or negative, but you are being too dismissive of human nature if you don't believe people make snap-judgments based on how you talk--the regional jargon you use, the accent you have, etc.

 

[riverwoman1040]

somewhat off topic, but best one ever- drinking water from a Bubbler in Wisconsin. I don't care where I move, it will always be a bubbler to me 😍

 

[pedro4199]

From LA and live in TN. I have heard and use both.

 

[thejonqproject]

i made it with this girl and got herpes. bummer

 

[jigabodo]

definitely "made" in Cali

I used "got" and I am from Cali. Maybe it depends on what part of Cali?

 

[Bananas Foster]

I'm fixing to go to med school in my home state of GA.

I catch myself using this colloquialism every now & then. Does this seem foreign to anyone?

Oh, I'm fixin' to do a number of things at any given moment. Right now I'm fixing to do my homework.

It's one of my favorite expressions from Oklahoma, because it always makes you sound like you're doing something, but in reality you're sitting on your ***. I swear I heard my uncle honest to god say this once: "I'm fixing to prep the dock for the rebuild once we're ready"

what!?

 

[pedro4199]

I think the distinction comes into play when referring to the time period in which you received your grade.

For example, if you just got your test back and your friend asks you what grade you received, I would say, “I made an A!”

If you were talking about a course you both took last semester, I would say, “I got an A.”

But, like I said before, I have heard people use them interchangeably.

 

[Bananas Foster]

So, this one bothers me.

When in oklahoma, I said "I live on Sheridan St."

When I'm at Chicago, I say "I stay at North Ave."

 

[Ashers]

somewhat off topic, but best one ever- drinking water from a Bubbler in Wisconsin. I don't care where I move, it will always be a bubbler to me 😍

I moved to WI for med school. Bubbler annoys me, so does Tyme Machine for ATM -- that still confuses me when people say it. I'm just glad they say "soda" here and not "pop." I grew up calling everything "coke" until I got too many cokes given to me, and I don't like coke.

I like this map that shows the distribution of pop vs coke vs soda.
green = pop, blue = soda, red = coke, purple = other

I say I "got" a certain grade. I'm from CA and HI and went to school in AZ.

There's enough weird things that I say when I'm in HI or around people from HI speaking pidgin.

 

[BrokenGlass]

Before coming to this site, I never heard someone refer to receiving a grade in a class as "making" it. Is it a regional thing? Vote and post where you hail from.

I don't get it. I think you made it up.

 

[nevercold]

The expression originally referred to essay exams which were actually written by the student.

The exam exists as an exam before the student writes down any answers. It is a collection of questions or challenges. Therefore the student's contribution is not the exam. The student writes the answers. You could respond to an exam. You could answer an exam. You didn't write the exam (unless you were the instructor/evaluator giving it out for others to take).


Also, "to get" is a verb in the infinitive form. Conjugated in the simple past tense, it is "got" for all subjects.

 

[BMBPSU2008]

I don't get it. I think you made it up.

How about you make like a tree, and get out of here. 😀

 

[87138]

Whenever I hear someone say (or see someone write) "I made an A/B/C/D/F . . . " my immediate thought is that the person must be from another country or perhaps an ESL student.

 

[mdgator]

I'm from a part of Florida with heavy influence from both southern states like Alabama and Georgia, as well as many northern transplants. I say both GOT and MAKE. They both sound perfectly natural to me.

You guys might get a kick out of this one, regarding the whole pop/soda/coke issue. Elderly people where I come from have their own terminology. My grandfather used to give me money at a basketball game or something "for a CO-COLER." Also, I used to have a job where I got tips. Really old people would give me a quarter or two and say, "go buy you a SODIE POP."
(I always say that I want a Coke, even if the store sells only Pepsi products.)

 

[mdgator]

I'm from a part of Florida with heavy influence from both southern states like Alabama and Georgia, as well as many northern transplants. I say both GOT and MAKE. They both sound perfectly natural to me.

You guys might get a kick out of this one, regarding the whole pop/soda/coke issue. Elderly people where I come from have their own terminology. My grandfather used to give me money at a basketball game or something "for a CO-COLER." Also, I used to have a job where I got tips. Really old people would give me a quarter or two and say, "go buy you a SODIE POP."
(I always say that I want a Coke, even if the store sells only Pepsi products.)

 

[west nile]

I'm pretty sure howdy2u is the only Californian who says "made" and/or "cali".

and for the record, so cal kids are mad at nor cal kids for not having a hella cool word like hella in there region.

and people from the midwest say "bag" funny.

 

[VQuick]

I'm with you on that one. Both "get" and "make" are slang, replace them with their "more correct" counterparts.

Get would be replaced with receive.
----- I received an A. ------

While make would be replaced with produce.
----- I produced an A. ------

Even that way get/received just sounds better.

"I produced an A"?! Make has many more meanings than just produce, so "make a grade" is not "formal" enough for you, a better way to rephrase it would be "I attained an A". As in "I made it [my goal]", "I made the final round", etc. But I agree with the other poster; get and make are unequivocally not slang.

and people from the midwest say "bag" funny.

How do they pronounce it? I do know that some people here in Wisconsin pronounce vague to rhyme with bag! Sounds terrible to my ears. Also, these same people pronounce bagel to rhyme with haggle! It sounds awful.

Since the thread is already a bit off topic.... Another thing Southerners say that sounds weird up here: a friend of mine from North Carolina said "get up with me", and the context indicated that she was saying we should catch up since we hadn't talked in a while. But it just sounded very sexual to me....

Here's a new query for everyone: how do you pronounce rout, root and roof? I say route and root to rhyme with boot, and roof to rhyme with aloof (same oooo sound). But here again, many in the upper Midwest say them differently: route rhymes with out, root rhymes with soot (and roof has the same vowel sound as root--can't think of a rhyme).

 

[dideoxy]

The exam exists as an exam before the student writes down any answers. It is a collection of questions or challenges. Therefore the student's contribution is not the exam. The student writes the answers. You could respond to an exam. You could answer an exam. You didn't write the exam (unless you were the instructor/evaluator giving it out for others to take).

Or, another way to look at it is that each student's exam is (presumably) unique, solely because they wrote on it. It would follow that you 'wrote an exam,' because you made contributions to the test that made it yours, and when the prof hands yours back to you they would call it your exam (not your 'responses' or 'answers'), despite the fact that they wrote the questions. It sounds more awkward to say you answer an exam.. you answer questions on an exam; even if the exam is only 1 question I think usage experts would say you're more appropriately 'answering a question on the exam' than 'answering the exam.'

There's just a difference in how we view an exam. "Wrote" views an exam as being a collection of questions +/- answers, while your argument assumes that the exam is solely the questions. I've heard of philosophy profs putting a blank sheet in front of students and letting them on their own - no questions asked, no prompts, no advice given. Is that not an exam, then, because no questions existed for the students before they write anything down? Did they not write an exam? If not, when that sheet with all their writing on it is handed back, what is it?

 

[Spin]

Make implies that I earned my grade through merit.

Got implies that the instructor graded me on a whim.

In Florida, "got" = "deliberately acquired." I hear people say things like "I got some milk at the grocery store," all the time. Milk was not bestowed upon them at someone else's whim.

North-Floridian ways of saying things:
"Soft drink" or "soda" = any carbonated beverage.
"Coke" = any dark-colored carbonated beverage.
"I got an A" = I earned an A.
"I took the MCAT" = the only way to say it. If you say "I wrote the MCAT," it means that you were one of the authors of the MCAT.

EDIT:

"Here's a new query for everyone: how do you pronounce rout, root and roof? I say route and root to rhyme with boot, and roof to rhyme with aloof (same oooo sound). But here again, many in the upper Midwest say them differently: route rhymes with out, root rhymes with soot (and roof has the same vowel sound as root--can't think of a rhyme).

In Florida, root and roof have the same oo sound as boot. Most people I know say route both ways, depending upon how they feel at the moment.