From last lesson, at speed
Six sentences. One problem each. The note tells you what actually happened.
1. I serviced the boiler in October. — an engineer came out
2. We had the plumber to look at the tank.
3. She got her neighbour take the parcel in.
4. He had stolen his laptop on the train. — he was the victim
5. They are having repaired the roof next week.
6. By the time we arrived they had already fixed everything. — a contractor had done it for them
One letter of difference
Have, get, and one useful test
Start with two sentences describing the same event. I had my passport renewed. I got my passport renewed. Both are correct, both mean somebody in an office did the work, and yet nobody treats them as interchangeable. The second implies something the first does not.
What it implies is effort. Have is the neutral form: the arrangement was unremarkable, you rang somebody and they came. Get carries the sense that it took some doing — a queue, three phone calls, a form filled in twice, a person who had to be chased. Which is why advice is almost always get: get that looked at, get it checked before you buy it. Advice is about making something happen, and get is the verb of making something happen.
Then there are the two shapes that name the person, and they differ by exactly one word. We had the electrician check the flat — no to. We got the electrician to check the flat — with to. The meanings differ in the same direction as before: the first is an arrangement, the second took persuading. Make and let follow the first pattern and take no to either: they made me wait, they let me wait inside.
One trap before the tables. Get married, get paid, get dressed, get lost look identical to the causative and are not causatives at all: nobody is arranging anything, and get there is simply an informal way of building a passive about yourself. The test that separates them is short and it works almost every time — could a third party send an invoice? Somebody can invoice you for renewing a passport. Nobody can invoice you for getting dressed.
Three questions.
1. What does get add that have does not?
2. Why is advice almost always get?
3. Is get paid a causative?
Two auxiliaries, two shapes, nine tenses
Have against get
| have | get | |
|---|---|---|
| Register | Neutral. The default in writing and in anything official. | More informal, and much commoner in speech. |
| Effort | The arrangement was unremarkable. We had the carpet cleaned. | It took some doing. We got the carpet cleaned — eventually, after two cancellations. |
| Advice and instructions | Rare. Have that looked at sounds like a consultant speaking. | The normal choice. Get that looked at. Get it checked before you buy it. |
| Naming the person | have + person + bare infinitive. We had the surveyor look at the roof. | get + person + to + infinitive. We got the surveyor to look at the roof. |
| Misfortune | The standard form. She had her bag stolen. | Possible, more informal, and faintly more blaming. She got her bag stolen. |
Three verbs that pattern with have, and one that does not.
have · make · let + person + bare infinitive: we had him wait · they made me wait · they let me wait.
get · ask · persuade + person + to + infinitive: we got him to wait · we asked him to wait.
Then the trap in reverse: make takes a to when it goes passive. They made me wait → I was made to wait. There is no rule behind that; it is simply true, and it is tested.
One arrangement, moved through time
| Form | The boiler |
|---|---|
| Present simple — a habit | We have the boiler serviced every autumn. |
| Present continuous — an arrangement | We are having it serviced on Tuesday. |
| Past simple | We had it serviced last week. |
| Present perfect | We have had it serviced twice this year. |
| Past perfect | We had had it serviced only a month before it failed. |
| Future | We will have it serviced before the winter. |
| Modal | We should have it serviced. / We ought to get it looked at. |
| -ing form | Having it serviced took a whole morning. |
| Infinitive | It costs ninety pounds to have it serviced. |
The two that people get wrong. The present perfect and the past perfect both stack two forms of have, and both look like typing errors. We have had it serviced twice. We had had it serviced only a month before. Say them aloud until they stop sounding wrong, because they are the versions an examiner is listening for.
Rewrite each sentence using the word given, keeping the meaning the same.
Somebody is coming to service the boiler on Tuesday. HAVING
A garage repaired my car last week. HAD
I persuaded my brother to drive me to the airport. GOT
The electrician checked the whole flat for us — we arranged it, nothing more. HAD
Somebody stole her passport in Lisbon. HAD
It would be sensible to ask a doctor to look at that. GET
The tank had already been replaced before we moved in — we paid for it. HAD
Paying somebody to translate the certificate cost ninety euros. HAVING
Five questions.
1. Which would a friend say to you about a strange noise in your car?
2. We had the surveyor ___ the roof.
3. We got the surveyor ___ the roof.
4. They made me ___ three hours, and then I ___ wait another two.
5. Which of these is not a causative?
Selling a flat
One word per gap. A flat being made ready for sale.
We put the flat on the market in April, which meant six weeks of things done that we had lived with happily for nine years. First we had the whole place , which took two men four days and made more difference than anything else. Then we got a joiner rehang the two doors that had never shut properly. We had an electrician the consumer unit, because the survey was going to find it anyway and it is cheaper to be the one who found it. I had the boiler serviced the previous autumn, so that at least was done. The only thing we not have looked at was the roof, and of course the roof was the thing the buyer’s surveyor wrote three paragraphs about. By the time we exchanged we had more work done on that flat in two months than in the whole nine years we lived there — and every bit of it for somebody else to enjoy.
Six lines of one arrangement, out of order. Put them into the order in which they happened.
- Then we had the electrics checked by somebody with no interest in finding a problem.
- We had three companies out to quote, and threw away the cheapest one on principle.
- And on the last day we got the snagging list signed before anybody left the flat.
- They had the old units taken out in a single morning, which was the only fast part.
- We had the worktop replaced twice, because the first one arrived with a chip in it.
- We got the middle one to put the lead time in writing before we paid the deposit.
One arrangement, nine tenses
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 8 minutes
Choose one thing in your life that gets arranged repeatedly: a car, a boiler, your teeth, your hair, a visa, a flat that belongs to somebody else.
Four minutes each. Walk it up the ladder from the table, out loud, without looking.
- The habit: I have it ___ every ___. The next one: I am having it ___ on ___.
- The last time, the number of times this year, and the time it went wrong just after you had had it done.
- What you will have done before the winter, and what you should have done and have not.
- Finish with the two your partner is listening for: have had and had had. If either sounds wrong to you, say it twice more.
Which rungs held
Two questions.
1. Which rung was hardest to say aloud?
2. When you named the person, did the to come out right?
The invoice test
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. How do you tell a causative from something that only looks like one?
2. Bare infinitive or to?
Next. The three-way choice: active, passive, causative. Same event, three sentences, three different things put on the page — and the question of what the causative is really encoding, which is not what it looks like.