get and become

'Get' and 'become'

				Olga from Latvia asks: Please tell me when we must use become and when we must use get. Margarete Stepaneke from Austria asks: I would very much like to know when to usebecome. My feeling is that verbs like get, turn,go and grow are often preferred to become. Is there a rule for when to use become?

	Roger replies:	more questions

			Get, as we shall see, has many different meanings whereasbecome basically indicates development of some kind. Get is more informal and is frequently used in speech; becomeis more formal and is more often used in writing. Get/become + adjective When used with adjectives, get indicates growth or development and can therefore be used as the preferred alternative to become in an informal register. Compare the following sentences: Informal Formal I got interested in photography when I was ten. I became interested in art in later life. As he got older, his garden got really messy. As he became older, he could no longer maintain his garden It got colder and colder the further north we went. It became increasingly cold as we travelled north. I'm getting quite hungry now, aren't you? He became quite angry when he discovered there was no food

			Become + noun We cannot, however, use get with a noun, even though the meaning is 'grow' or 'develop into'. We have to use become in this sense: 'She was only seventeen when she became a beauty queen.' 'Texas became the twenty-eighth state of the USA in 1845.