past participle - How widely-accepted is "What do you got?" to Americans?


Watching A Stranger Among Us, I noticed that Melanie Griffith twice asked


"What do you got?"


I recognise this as an American construction which sounds strange to me — Brits invariably say either "What have you got?" or "What do you have?". But I'd be interested to know if it's considered "normal" by most/all Americans, or if it's regionally or otherwise restricted.



Answer



Gimme a break.


In this instance, "What do you got" is a false orthographicalization of colloquial "Whadayagot", which in turn is a perfectly normal elision of formal "What have you got". A step less elided would be "What've you got"; a step more elided would be "Whatchagot?"


It only looks strange or improper because the writer/transcriber made it look so. A similarly imputed impropriety occurs with the spelling of 've as of: "If I'd known you were coming I'd of baked a cake."


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