Subject: - 0500 ( est )

( sstraigh @ bingsuns . cc . binghamton . edu ) on sun , 26 mar 1995 , the linguist list said : ) subject : 6 . 435 sum : whatever happened to had / ' d ? ) date : fri , 24 mar 1995 15 : 16 : 32 gmt + 1000 ) from : dziegele @ arts . cc . monash . edu . au ) subject : summary : whatever happened to 'd ? . . . ) many people found analogies with other modals that do not invert , e . g . ) claudia brugman mentions the difficulty of inverting ' she has to stop ' ) ) * ' has she to stop ? ' and gotta is equally impossible to invert . james ) kirchner also mentions otta as a similar case . tamara al - kasey compares ) the negative and the affirmative interrogatives : * ' had she better stop ? ' ) and ' had n't she better stop ? ' suggesting that the latter is more ) acceptable . for me , both of the interrogative forms are fine , though the latter is surely more frequent for discourse reasons . moreover , the parallel between better and otta strikes me as very great : 1 . we all { better / otta } stick to our knitting . 2 . had ( n't ) we all { b / o } stick to our knitting ? 3 . most of them { b / o } be leaving now to catch the bus . 4 . had ( n't ) most of them { b / o } be leaving now ? 5 . do ( n't ) you think our noisy friends { b / o } { shut up / be quiet } ? all of these examples cast doubt on the applicability of roger lass 's comments to my own usage : ) " in my dialect anyhow ( new york city middle class ) , it 's certainly ) normal to say ( and sometimes , in less formal registers , to write ) , ) ) i better , you better , he better , we better , they better . . . ) ) observe though : all the pronouns end with a vowel , and there are ) alternative forms , e . g . i 'd better . . . though these are much less ) common . h . stephen straight , binghamton university ( suny )
