Grammar of "get" [closed]

A Voice of America Learning English page contains the sentence "You get the grass the dirt."

It brings so many memories and feelings and, you know, it’s earthy and natural. You get the grass the dirt. It’s all those things. And I love that connection.

Why do two nouns come following "get"? Generally there's only one noun.


Get is, among other things, a fairly ordinary transitive verb which can take a single direct object:

I get a book.

It's also a ditransitive verb which can be followed by two nouns. In that case, the first is the indirect object which is followed by the direct object:

I get the man a book. → I get a book for the man.

There are many ditransitive verbs: as well as get, there are tell, give, read, pay:

I tell the man a story.
I give the man a book.
I read the boy a story.
I pay the woman some cash.

In all of the examples, what is actually told, given, read or paid [the direct object] is the second noun. The first is the indirect object, recipient of the direct object.

So "You get the grass the dirt" could mean that you obtain some dirt and you give it to the grass. That's not entirely nonsense, but it's such an unlikely act — particularly in the context of home-grown vegetables — that it cannot be what's intended.

What is intended in the text is that you get grass and dirt on your home-grown produce. The sentence could quite easily be

You get the grass and the dirt.

However, what is being employed in the text is asyndeton where and is omitted for effect. When you omit and in this way, you need to replace it with a comma (or you get a ditransitive verb):

You get the grass, the dirt.

It's a typo, a misprint; and it's rather unfortunate in a text designed for learners of English.