Perplexing sentences

Question

Find the mistake in the following sentences, then write them correctly :

1. A road congestion had us arrive late for that important meeting. Nothing could be done !

2. Had you anyone help you?

My answer

1. The sentences are error free.

2. Did you have anyone to help you?

GPY · Accepted Answer

Omar Ahmed1. A road congestion had us arrive late for that important meeting. Nothing could be done !

"congestion" is normally uncountable. "A road congestion" does not seem natural.

To me, the "had us" construction does not seem very expected in this particular sentence, but it is not definitely incorrect.

There should be no space before the exclamation mark.

Omar Ahmed2. Had you anyone help you?

Per my other post, this is theoretically possible but feels highly strained and is not really usable in ordinary English. Your sentence, "Did you have anyone to help you?", is normal and natural English, but whether it is the expected correction, I couldn't say. For example, it could be that the question setter thinks "Had you anyone to help you?" is the correction.

By the way, I think I may have asked you this before, but could you confirm that these questions that you ask about are not written by a native English speaker?

Perplexing sentences

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