Had he or had he have

It's "Had he done this ..."

The non-inverted form is "If he had * done this ...". In speech, some speakers insert an extra have (or 've) where I have placed the asterisk. There is no recognised tense consisting of had + have + past participle,. and this form is generally considered incorrect. Never use it in formal writing or in an examination.

It should be "Had he done this ...".

In standard modern English, "had he have (done something)" is always wrong. Along with the similar "if he'd have (done something)", it is one of my pet hates. It looks glaringly wrong (to me) written down, but in the UK I increasingly notice speakers using these forms, to the point where I've almost become desensitised. In some cases perhaps it could b

GPY it is one of my pet hates.

I used to feel the same way, but I have changed over the years. It does seem to be a natural part of the language, the spoken language at least, of many speakers. I suspect that if descriptive linguists were to analyse English with no preconceptions, they might well report it simply as a variant form .in the spoken language.

fivejedjonI used to feel the same way, but I have changed over the years. It does seem to be a natural part of the language, the spoken language at least, of many speakers. I suspect that if descriptive linguists were to analyse English with no preconceptions, they might well report it simply as a variant form .in the spoken language.

Do you feel that it has b

Huddleston and Pullum (CGLE (2002.151) say of this construction in speech: It appears to be increasing in frequency, and though it is not yet established as a standard form, it is used by many who in general speak standard English.

fivejedjonHuddleston and Pullum (CGLE (2002.151) say of this construction in speech: It appears to be increasing in frequency,

Thanks, that's interesting. That was my feeling too, but I wasn't sure if I was just noticing it more.

I notice it more. It was beaten out of me at school, but my son says it.

In general I think of myself as reasonably bilingual in English, but occasionally I come across UK usages that are new to me (Take a decision springs to mind). This is one of those. BNC (which only covers to 1993) lists no matches for had he have, but GloWbe lists a handful, mostly from the UK. GloWbe doesn't seem to make it clear what years are covered, but the citations that

None of the corpora is very strong on spoken English, and the structure we are talking about is largely a spoken one. My feeling (and I have no evidence for this) is that it may finally be breaking into writing, thanks largely to the vast increase in the use of the informal written word in the last decade or so.