# Going to go and having to have - are there any other verbs that do this?  (and in other languages)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-go-and-having-to-have-are-there-any-other-verbs-that-do-this-and-in-other-languages/684194>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 21, 2014, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-go-and-having-to-have-are-there-any-other-verbs-that-do-this-and-in-other-languages/684194 "2014-03-21T00:13:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-go-and-having-to-have-are-there-any-other-verbs-that-do-this-and-in-other-languages/684194/21 "2014-03-21T18:33:30Z")

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Is it time to link to a Cheap Trick video yet?

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**Author:** ![tapu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-go-and-having-to-have-are-there-any-other-verbs-that-do-this-and-in-other-languages/684194/22 "2014-03-21T18:49:49Z")

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The Frisbee is by you.

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2014, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-go-and-having-to-have-are-there-any-other-verbs-that-do-this-and-in-other-languages/684194/23 "2014-03-22T06:01:45Z")

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In an English class once, we read an essay by Stephen Jay Gould called The Great Dinosaur Ripoff.

Some months later, I came across an op-ed piece he had written for some magazine which was really nothing more than a somewhat condensed and rehashed version of the original. Without citing his original essay, he had basically just plagiarized himself. I wrote a note to my English teacher about it, which I titled The Great Great Dinosaur Ripoff Ripoff.

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**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2014, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/going-to-go-and-having-to-have-are-there-any-other-verbs-that-do-this-and-in-other-languages/684194/24 "2014-03-22T07:40:16Z")

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> [@Senegoid](#):
>
> “Going to go” is just one particular case of a more general construct: “Going to \<verb\>” to express an intention to do something in the future. Idiomatically, it’s actually the more common way we express the future tense in English. In “Going to go”, the second verb “go” just happens to be the verb that is being expressed in the future tense. As noted above, this construct is used in Spanish too.

Yeah, I don’t see what the big deal is here. I think what the OP is really interested in is _exact reduplication_, which is integral to some languages, such as in forming plurals, for example.

In English REAL exact reduplication, as far as I know, occurs almost entirely in baby-talk (_choo choo_, _night night_, etc.). The only adult word that comes to mind for me at the moment is _too-too_.

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