get to work

[diamondcutter]

“OK class,” says Ms. Liu. “It’s time for our group project. Let’s get to work!”

(from an English textbook for junior high school students by DC Canada Education Publishing and Hebei Education Press)

I wonder if the “work” in “get to work” is a noun or a verb. I think the “get to work” means “get started”. Am I right?

 

[emsr2d2]

It's a noun. "get to" means "start".

"Let's get to work!" can be read as "Let's start doing our work!" I think you would have had no trouble recognising "work" as a noun there.

 

[teechar]

Diamondcutter, "get to work" is a set phrase in English.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/get-set-to-work
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/get to work
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/to-get-to-work

 

[tzfujimino]

I've heard people say "get down to work".

 

[probus]

I've heard people say "get down to work".

It's extremely common in my dialect.

 

[Tarheel]

“OK class,” says Ms. Liu. “It’s time for our group project. Let’s get to work!”

(from an English textbook for junior high school students by DC Canada Education Publishing and Hebei Education Press)

I wonder if [STRIKE]the[/STRIKE] “work” in “Let's get to work” is a noun or a verb. I think [STRIKE]the[/STRIKE] “get to work” means “get started”. Am I right?

Yes. You are right.

 

[Phaedrus]

I've heard people say "get down to work".

That expression is a lot more common with "business" ("get down to business") in American English. Here are some corpus comparisons, from COCA:

get to business: 38
get to work: 3,609

get down to business: 438
get down to work: 55

 

[tedmc]

There is also a similar, informal phrase, "get cracking".

 

[GoesStation]

There is also a similar, informal phrase, "get cracking".

Which sadly isn't used in American English.

 

[PaulMatthews]

“OK class,” says Ms. Liu. “It’s time for our group project. Let’s get to work!”

(from an English textbook for junior high school students by DC Canada Education Publishing and Hebei Education Press)

I wonder if the “work” in “get to work” is a noun or a verb. I think the “get to work” means “get started”. Am I right?

It’s time for our group project. Let’s get to work!

Yes: you are right. "Get" is a catenative verb here, and "to work" is an infinitival clause serving as complement of "get". The meaning here is roughly "Let's commencing working".

It doesn't mean "Let's get to our place of work", where "work" would be a noun.

 

[Tarheel]

"Let's commencing working"?
:?:

 

[Tdol]

It's extremely common in my dialect.

It's common in BrE too.

 

[Phaedrus]

It's a noun. "get to" means "start".

"Get" is a catenative verb here, and "to work" is an infinitival clause serving as complement of "get".

No, but it could mean work (noun) in the sense of activity of working'.

One piece of evidence favoring the noun analysis is that we can substitute the pronoun it for work:

Let's get to it.

Another is that possessive variants are possible:

Let's get to (our) work.
He got to (his) work.
I finally got to (my) work.