Learn English – Why past tense in ‘I got this’

tenses

I came across the phrase 'I got this' in an episode of 'How I Met Your Mother'. In the episode, Robin kept saying 'I got this' whenever something came up that needs dealing with. I guess it means 'Leave this to me. I can handle it'. Urban Dictionary says it's short for 'I got this under control.' I think the omission makes sense.

The thing I don't understand is why past tense is used here. When you use 'I got this', you are referring to something in the present, not in the past. Maybe you can get it under control, but you haven't gotten it under control yet. Why do you use past tense?

Here is an example from Urban Dictionary:

You're are driving a truck full of your stoner friends. The car in
front of you slams on its breaks and all of your wasted friends are
screaming that they are going to die.

You scream "I GOT THIS!!!" and then you stop your car just inches away
from the car's bumper.

It is very clear that you had screamed 'I got this' before you actually got it under control.

Best Answer

The OED has this usage back to 1849 so it's been around a while. It says that it comes from omitting have and is "colloquial":

b. The pa. pple. [past participle] is also used colloq. with omission of (I) have. Cf. gotcha n., gotta v.

1849 Knickerbocker 34 12 They got no principles. They got no platform to stand onto.
1857 Quinland I. 1 Got an hour to spare—thought I'd just run in and see what you were all about.
1884 ‘M. Twain’ Adventures Huckleberry Finn xxxviii. 325 We got to dig in like all git-out.
1887 M. E. Wilkins Humble Romance 370 What you got there, grandma?
1911 R. D. Saunders Col. Todhunter i. 11 Oh, of course, you got to laugh at me.
1911 J. F. Wilson Land Claimers ix. 118 But I got several plans, and I need ye.
1941 P. F. Webster & D. Ellington (title of song) I got it bad and that ain't good.
1967 L. White Crimshaw Memorandum (1968) v. 93 Gawd knows I got enough problems.


EDIT: I don't have evidence, so I didn't originally include it in my answer, but my suspicion is that:

In US informal registers, got seems to have been re-interpreted as a present-tense verb form just meaning "have, possess". It sure behaves that way. It's homophonous with, but not identical to, the past tense of get. Historically it seems to have been a resultative construction, but it acts like a normal verb now.

The only issue is if so, then the verb's defective in the 3sg: both "he/she/it got" and "he/she/it gots" are highly marked and are just avoided in most dialects. In response to Betty's inquiry, I'm not sure sure if people just say "he/she/it's got" or if we reword to avoid the issue.

Again, I got no evidence; it's just a pet theory for now.

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