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"When you gotta go, you gotta go!" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| tennisfan Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5358 days ago 130 posts - 247 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: German | Message 1 of 5 08 November 2012 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was thinking about this phrase the other day, and I wondered if for my whole life I've misunderstood what it meant! Of course, I'm talking about the bathroom phrase "when you gotta go, you gotta go!"
My question is about the second clause. I always thought that it had the same, redundant meaning as the first clause. Sort of like, "I'd love to go to the park, but if it's raining, it's raining." But then I thought that perhaps I misunderstood it all along, and that the second clause might actually mean a sort of suggested consequence, like "if you gotta go, (then) you should go." Sort of like: "if you're hungry, then you should eat," or "if you're sick, then you have to go to the doctor." I'm wondering what my fellow English speakers think about this---I assumed it was just a redundant colloquialism, and I always assumed everyone else thought so. But I can see now that some people might see the second clause as a consequential suggestion. What do you think when you hear this phrase? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5296 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 2 of 5 08 November 2012 at 6:58pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm not a native speaker, but this is true, without any reasonable doubt :-) (que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be ...) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5207 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 5 09 November 2012 at 4:23am | IP Logged | ||
The same thing as you originally thought. That the redundancy's for emphasis, as if to say, "What else can one do?" or, "There isn't any other choice...", with a little metaphorical shrug of the shoulders before the repeat. Edited by songlines on 09 November 2012 at 4:24am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 4 of 5 09 November 2012 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Lol! I think the "gotta" in "I gotta go" (in this sense) is kinda colloquial and actually means need. So "when you need to go, you gotta go" :D
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| Spinchäeb Ape Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4468 days ago 146 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 5 of 5 11 November 2012 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've always taken the second clause to mean, "You have to deal with it immediately." In other words, when you've got to go, you'd better get in there and take care of business or you'll end up peeing your pants (or worse).
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