to get somebody to do something Has the structure: 'to get somebody to do something' always the meaning of 'persuading', 'convincing' somebody to do something? Or can it also mean that one tells som

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Giulio

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to get somebody to do something Has the structure: 'to get somebody to do something' always the meaning of 'persuading', 'convincing' somebody to do something? Or can it also mean that one tells somebody else to do something, or assigns him a task, or orders him to do something. without the special meaning of 'persuading'? For instance, if I say: 'I got the child to eat lunch at noon', does it have necessarily to mean that I persuaded the child to eat at that time, or could also mean that I simply prepared lunch for the child at that time and made him eat, without the meaning of 'persuading' him (because he didn't want to eat)? Thank you very much.

17 févr. 2017 14:37

Réponses · 13

It doesn't necessarily involve persuasion. For example, you can say 'I'll get my secretary to contact you' or 'I got the gardener to cut back those bushes'. In these situations, it's simply a case of issuing an instruction.

17 février 2017

Great question! In most every case, "get [someone] to do [something]" implies persuasion, as you already understand. I can't even think of a case where this phrase would be used in a way that NO persuasion was implied. In your example, "I got the child to eat lunch at noon", it is communicated that you had to persuade the child to comply. If that was not the case, you wouldn't have "gotten" the child to do it; the child would have done so on their own, as expressed by the phrase, "The child ate lunch at noon." I hope this helps!

17 février 2017

It doesn't have to imply persuasion. 'I got him to do his homework before he watched cartoons,' can simply mean that he was forced to do his homework, rather than that he was 'persuaded,' to do it.

17 février 2017

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