HAVE and HAVE GOT

A very common mistake is to confuse GOT and HAVE GOT. In fact, this is a mistake that even native speakers sometimes make!

GOT is simply the past tense of GET, whereas HAVE GOT means the same thing as HAVE.

Thus, we can say "I got an A on my test", but not "I got a rich uncle".

Perhaps this mistake is so widespread because people hear the shortened form 've got or 's got and don't quite process the helping verb. So these two sentences may sound very similar to some people:

(Wrong)               She got a pet poodle.
(Right)                  She's got a pet poodle.