They are just three little words. Sometimes they are preceded or followed by please, but not always. So why do they irritate so?
I’ll set the scene. You are in a restaurant, the waiter or waitress comes to your table and asks you if you are ready to order. You open your mouth, and you start the sentence with, "please can I get". What is the waiter or waitress supposed to think? Is the customer after their job? The response to the poor unfortunate retard should be that it is the job of the waiting staff to serve the customer, therefore it is the waiting person that ‘gets’. Only in a self-service establishment does the customer ‘get’. Besides customers going and getting their food from the kitchen probably contravened health and hygiene laws.
In the unlikely event that someone who uses the phrase "can I get" reads this. I say unlikely because it is the phrase of an illiterate. The correct way to ask for something from a person that is going to serve you is "please could I have" or "please may I have".
"Can I get?” A hanging offence if ever there was one!