Get That Hair Cut!

In America, in the fifties and sixties, conservative fathers made their sons keep their hair short; they had them–or even made them have their hair cut. This was harder to do when the resistance to the American war in Vietnam started. This trend of young people keeping long hair also became popular as part of the hippy movement, inspired by flower power, free love, environmentalism, sympathy for the women’s liberation movement and the ubiquity of rock ‘n roll & rhythm and blues concerts–only exacerbated by the use of psychedelic drugs, used to alter consciousness and become more spiritual and relaxed, also known as tripping, feeding on’s head and tuning out.

From Twitter

Quiz
How do you say it correctly?

You know your friend went to the barber or hair salon, so you ask:
“Did you _________?”

Choices:
① cut your
② get your hair cut
③ get your haircut
④ r hair get cut

Answer and Explanations:
The answer is number get your haircut because unless we use an electric razor and shears (and do it ourselves) we get it done by another, or we:
*have it done by another (person)
*have it cut by another (person)

Furthermore, to cut your hair means to do it yourself, or by oneself.

Of course we can ask “did you cut your hair,” (using option number ①) but most people do not cut their own hair, so why ask this?

Number ③: get your haircut is incorrect, because it is about ownership, as ‘haircut’ (notice it is one word, and thus) is a noun following the possessive pronoun ‘your.’ Also notice the grammar is correct, here, but it generally doesn’t make sense; we don’t speak of haircuts as permanent things to own.

Number ④ r hair get cut–as in ‘Did your hair get cut?’ is wrong (not grammatically), but as it is passive (not mentioning a subject and missing a causative verb, such as get or have, which suggests a personal subject such as ‘you’, and thus sounds as if the haircut was performed against the listener’s will.



Author: sayinsei

英語の発音矯正と会話クラスを提供する新宿の語学学校. A language school in Shinjuku offering English classes

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *