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I have this text in the book Dogwood by Chris Fabry:

I whirled in the seat and grabbed his right arm in a death grip.

Carson overcompensated and jerked the wheel left, weaving into the next lane. A horn honked and rose in volume as we locked eyes. He finally swerved back, regaining control and narrowly missing a pickup that ran off the road and threw gravel and dust into the air.

"Are you crazy?" he shouted. "You almost got us killed."

Why does the author use a phrase like "You almost got us killed"? Why not: "You almost killed us"? What reason did the author have to use that phrase?

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  • I think, in American English at least, "You almost got us killed" is more natural in the excitement of the moment. "You almost killed us" would be something that might be said as a statement of fact, later. They do mean practically the same thing. Commented yesterday
  • @Wastrel This is not just used in American English. It's simply informal/colloquial English. Commented 11 hours ago

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"You almost got us killed" is an idiomatic way of saying that someone's actions nearly led to your death. It suggests that it was not the person's direct intention to cause death, but that they were perhaps negligent or careless in some way that could have led to it.

"You almost killed us" removes the element of indirect cause, so taken literally it could mean the person had intentions to kill. However, in context, it would probably not be said with that intention or be received that way. If you have encountered these two sentences, they almost certainly mean exactly the same thing.

It's worth noting that "kill" doesn't inherently imply intention to cause death the same way that "murder" does. Old age "kills" people, for example. So, the idiomatic meaning in the case of this example may not apply to other verbs in other grammatically similar contexts.

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    I don't think that's quite right. "You almost killed us" is more direct, but it doesn't imply any such intent. If your friend convinces you go on a bus ride and the bus driver is driving crazy, you may tell them, "you almost got us killed" (implying the bus driver as the more direct cause). But if you go and your friends car and they drive pretty nuts and almost have an accident, you would probably say the later "You almost killed us", but this doesn't imply they were trying to (intent) and failed, not at all. It just means that if it had happened, they would be the more direct catalyst. Commented yesterday
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    @ttbek appreciate your comment, but that's not what I said. In fact, it's the opposite of what I said. 'Implication' is the conclusion that can be drawn from something not explicitly stated. What I said was that, taken literally, it could be understood to include intent. Then I went on to say that it wouldn't be understood that way, which is the implication. Commented yesterday
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    Whether the phrase is used literally or figuratively makes no difference with regard to intent. Case 1: Figurative, your friend tips over the kayak you're both in and you exclaim, "You almost killed us!" Used here figurative (no death imminent), it could have been tipped intentionally or by accident. Case 2: Literal, your friend stops the car on some train tracks, hears the train coming and barely gets the car started and out of the way in time and you yell at him, "You almost killed us!" Literal here, but the friend could have stopped the car there by purpose or by accident. Commented yesterday
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    @ttbek again, you're getting hung up on intent. I haven't suggested there is any difference in intent. I've tried to explain that there is a syntactic difference (which includes a specific reference to non intent) but not necessarily a semantic one. Let's be honest, "he killed her" could mean anything including murder, manslaughter, accidental death, negligence... context is king here. Commented yesterday
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    If you substitute something like 'arrested' for 'killed' in these phrases, I think it helps illustrate the distinction this answer explains. Commented 6 hours ago
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@Astralbee gave a good answer, but this might be clearer the other way around:

"You almost killed us" implies a fairly direct (intentional or un-intentional) action by 'you', such as reckless driving.

On the other hand, "You almost got us killed" heavily implies that the actual cause of death was someone/something else, for example entering the territory of a gang, and shouting the slogans of a rival.

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  • There's also plenty of overlap. For the reckless driving example, I think either expression would be common. But you wouldn't use "killed us" in in the indirect cases, like the gang example. Commented 17 hours ago
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This is one of those subtle linguistic nuances that is likely to vary from language to language, and also to vary over time and location. It is also unlikely to be recorded in a dictionary or phrasebook.

In some cases, it's very clear what the difference is. Let's say I paint a target on the wall of a wooden barn, then I fire a gun at the target. Inside the barn, my bullet narrowly misses one person, and spooks a horse, which gallops out of the barn, knocking over a second person.

When the two people come running out of the barn:

  • The person I narrowly missed can only correctly say "You almost killed me".
  • The person who nearly got trampled can only correctly say "You almost got me killed!"

If they had died, then people would say I had killed the first, and had got the second one killed, or, that I had caused the death of the second.

They would not typically say I had caused the bullet to kill the first; nor that I had killed the second with the horse. Logically, both could be considered equally correct; but this is not a matter of logic, but of English usage.

So "X Y'ed Z" means that X is considered by the speaker to have performed the action of Y-ing Z. And "X got Z Y'ed" means that the speaker considers that something or someone else did Y to Z, but X caused that to happen.

If my friend tells my boss I screwed up, and I lose my job because of it, then:

  • My boss fired me. (X Y'd Z)
  • My friend got me fired. (X got Z Y'd)

But in the less clear-cut, more ambiguous areas, there are often differences between:

  • what we expect linguistically;
  • what we know to be true logically; and
  • what we know is true legally, in terms of liability.

So in this case, where I am driving dangerously, in English:

  • If my car hits a pedestrian, I kill the pedestrian.
  • For vehicle passengers (in my car and any I hit), the danger is taken as being something outside the car: the crash, or the thing we crashed into is treated as the thing that acts to kill them.

This is even though, logically speaking, it's the impact with the car that kills people in both cases, and legally speaking it's my actions that are responsible and liable for the deaths.

I'd be interested to learn about languages which make different assumptions.

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Mostly this is just idiom. The idiomatic expression is "get us killed".

You get something done can mean that you do it yourself, or you cause someone else to do it. The ambiguity is useful here since if they had been killed in a car crash, who or what would have killed them? Is it "the pickup" or "the driver who swerved" or "the passenger who grabbed the driver's arm".

By using "you almost got us killed" the speaker doesn't need to worry about who or what actually does the killing. The ultimate cause would be the actions of the passenger, and it would have been the passenger who "got us killed".

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As others have said, The first form implies it was an accident; the second is ambiguous, but strongly implies that it was intentional.

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to get someone [killed] means: to cause someone to be killed by/in a situation

It is a typical spoken usage. Something almost killed us. Versus:

To say: You almost killed us. here would also work. It is missing the subtlety of cause someone to be killed.

Other examples of the cause meaning:

  • get someone in trouble
  • get someone freed [from jail, for example]
  • get someone ready to go
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