git annoyances: how to force git to fetch a particular file

[Dan Kegel]

What's the right way to force a get of a particular file?
With cvs, you can just remove the file and do 'cvs update foo.c',
but I'm having trouble RTF git M, and the otherwise helpful
http://wiki.winehq.org/GitWine doesn't seem to mention this case.

(Every so often, it seems like git fetch
doesn't get me the latest version of a few files.
git diff shows no differences.
I assume this is because I've manually patched a file
or something, but it'd be nice to know how to
deal with this other than throwing away the whole git tree
and re-cloning.  )
- Dan