have someone do/doing something

[Glizdka]

Not a teacher
------

I am teaching English at a junior high school in Taiwan. The question is quoted from the English textbook used by my school, so I cannot ditch this book.

Hello, sitifan!

This is sad news. Is it a public school? Do you need to use this one particular book, or do you have a list of approved books you can choose from? Can you talk to your superiors (maybe the principle) and discuss changing the book? Are your superiors rigorous when it comes to checking what you do in class? Could you skip the parts of the book you don't think are right (provided it's not the whole book), and substitute them with your own material?

When a teacher doubts what they teach, their students doubt what they learn.

[jutfrank]

When a teacher doubts what they teach, their students doubt what they learn.

(I'm borrowing this maxim.)

Not a teacher

*Not (perhaps quite yet) a (fully-fledged) teacher

[Glizdka]

I've had a regrettable, short episode of teaching in Poland. I'll either do it right or not at all.

[sitifan]

The testwriter's aim here is evidently to test for acquisition of the item have someone do something, so the 'correct' answer is A. There is of course such a pattern as have someone doing something, but it fits much less well in the context given than have someone do something. I don't know if the testwriter wanted to test the subject's understanding of the difference between these two forms, but I highly doubt it.

27 MAKE SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING
a) to affect someone in a way that makes them start doing something
have somebody laughing/crying etc
Within minutes he had the whole audience laughing and clapping.
b) to persuade or order someone to do something
have somebody doing something
She had me doing all kinds of jobs for her.
have somebody do something especially American English
I’ll have Hudson show you to your room.
https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/have
Both structures can mean "to persuade or order someone to do something," don't they?

[jutfrank]

Both structures can mean "to persuade or order someone to do something," don't they?

Possibly, yes, but that isn't normally how the former is used. Why have you mentioned make somebody do something? That's a different pattern. Let's not complicate things.

I'll explain it my way:

1) have somebody do something

Form: have + object + bare infinitive phrase

Meaning: The blue part is a verb phrase, signifying an action. The verb have is causative, the red part is the object (almost always a person/people) upon which the causation is effected, and the blue part is the action that is caused.

Use: This pattern is typically used to talk about ordering people to do things. It is usually the case that there is one party who has some kind of authority over another.


2) have somebody/something doing something

Form: have + object + adjectival phrase

Meaning: This is also causative, but has the sense that what is effected (the blue part) is a state-of-affairs rather than a single action. In other words, there's a sense of progressiveness that doesn't exist in the former pattern, thus the -ing form.

Use: Unlike the former, this pattern is not most commonly used to talk about giving people orders. Notice also that the 'state-of-affairs' that is caused need not be expressed as a verb phrase. I'd say it's just as likely to be expressed with a preposition phrase, as with the first two of the following examples:

He had me in stitches.
Her beauty had me on my knees.
Bob's back pain had him writhing in agony.

[Piscean]

Both structures can mean "to persuade or order someone to do something," don't they?

Both structures can mean "to persuade or order someone to do something," can't they?

[emsr2d2]

The English textbook is published by Kang Hsuan Educational Publishing Group. The editor in chief is Feng Heping.

We require this information in post 1 every time you quote from this book. No exceptions.