| 词组 | had better, had best |
| 释义 | had better, had best These are standard English idioms. • ... a word which had better be eschewed by all those who do not wish to talk high-flying nonsense — Richard Grant White 1870 • ... somewhat mysteriously hinted that I had better be at his house ... at seven o'clock in the evening —The Intimate Notebooks of George Jean Nathan, 1932 • ... he had better think again —Barzun 1985 • It had best be a good letter —Penelope Gilliatt, New Yorker, 1 May 1971 A great many handbooks find it necessary to assure you that had better and had best are standard, because these expressions were attacked as illogical in the 19th century. Walter Savage Landor and William Cobbett seem to have been key figures in the attack. The controversy was a sort of spin-off of the older controversy about had rather, which dates back to the 18th century (see had rather). The form Landor prescribed was would better, and according to the historical sketches in Lounsbury 1908 and McKnight 1928 Landor prevailed on Robert Browning to revise a had better in Pippa Passes to would better. Someone erected a theoretical basis for the controversy: had better was supposed to have been an erroneous expansion of '"d better, in which the'd was supposed to have been contracted from would. Bierce 1909 repeats it all. Cobbett 1823 criticizes the use of had better by the 18th-century rhetorician Hugh Blair as a vulgarism. Lounsbury devotes quite a bit of space to an account of his researches into literature to try to discover when had better came into common use; his findings suggest that it was more commonly used in the 19th century than earlier. The OED dates it all the way back to 971 ; Shakespeare used it once (Lounsbury wonders if perhaps Fletcher wrote that particular line). It was certainly known to the dramatist George Farquhar at the beginning of the 18th century: • You had best talk to him —Love and a Bottle, 1698 • ... but you had better walk about and cool by Degrees —The Beaux Stratagem, 1707 The point to remember here is that there has been nothing wrong with these phrases all along. A few of the critics who approve had better are less certain about it when the had is omitted. See better 2. |
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