Date: Wed, 14 Dec 1994 12:40:14 -0500
From: "Peter L. Patrick" PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET
Subject: Re: Get Over It
There's a less benevolent sense of "get over" which is also used in
AAVE. I guess it's related to Smitherman's second sense, but with an
addition of "by hook or by crook", or even "pulling a fast one".
However, I don't think any of these senses are very transitive;
theymay take prepositional objects, but I've never heard any of them
taking direct objects. As usual, I may be wrong (speakers do the
strangest things when linguists are not looking).
But I sincerely doubt that any of this was informing our
once-and-future Mayor's use when he said "Get over it" to the white
population of DC the day after the election. There was quite a
brouhaha in the media here, with Barry denying that he ever said it or
directed it to white people (though the recorded quotes left no doubt
that he had) and various columnists and talk-show hosts, white and
black, interpreting it. My sense is that it was clearly understood by
most people as a message to the rich and powerful white minority to
overcome their resistance to a Barry victory, which Barry repeatedly
cast as racism in and after the election (though as William Raspberry
pointed out none of the other local races showed evidence of a white-
black voter split). The sense of GIT OVAH quoted above is clearly
representative of an oppressed minority's ability to triumph or
succeed, so Barry would've have to have said "We got over". If he was
inviting the white population to "get over too", then who are the
oppressors they're supposed to triumph over? I can't see it.
--peter patrick
georgetown univ.
linguistics dept.