Had it coming ?

Question

Sam : I said a lot of things to you that day that I didn't mean. I'm really sorry, Bill.     Bill : Don't be. I had it coming. Which part of speech is this ' had it coming ' ?

Chameleon · Accepted Answer

It's not a part of speech by itself I think. I think this sentence is a contraction of:

"I had it coming (to me)."

rommie? Got a theory? hehe

Whl626 · Answer

What I meant is ' why the ing form of come following ' had ' ?<img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

Chameleon · Answer

maybe part of a participle?

Rommie · Answer

rommie? Got a theory? hehe

Sure thing.

Consider the sentence: "I had him eating spinach". Does that make sense to you? It makes sense to me. It means (1) "he was eating spinach", and (2) "I caused this to happen". The phrase "him eating spinach" is a gerund - quite a complicated gerund as it includes both subject and object, but still a gerund, so it acts as a noun in the wider sentence. The wider sentence then becomes "I had ", which is grammatically no problem.

So the construction steps are:
1. Start with a sentence: "He was eating spinach"
2. Turn it into a gerund: "him eating spinach"
3. Stick that into a sentence involving "had": "I had him eating spinach".

Bingo. But to be pedantic, there is a difference betwee "I had him eating spinach" and "I had his eating spinach". It is more usual (formally) to use the possessive ("his" rather than "him") with a gerund, but both are correct, and the choice really depends on what you mean. Was it HIM that you had, or is it the EATING that you had? It's a subtle difference, but with the verb "to have" implying causation, the non-genetive form is the correct one.

Let's try another one:
1. Start with a sentence: "It was coming".
2. Turn it into a gerund: "it coming" (not "its coming" - see above).
3. Stick that into a sentence involving "had": "He had it coming".

So the resulting sentence means (1) "it was coming", and (2) "he caused this to happen".

Parts of speech:
He = pronoun (the subject of "had")
had = past tense of the verb "to have"
it coming = gerund, which further breaks down into:
it = pronoun (the subject of "coming")
coming = verb (gerund form of the verb "to come")

Rommie

Had it coming ?

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