Have something done

UNIT 44  Have something done

A.   Study this example situation:
The roof of Bill's house was damaged in a storm, so he arranged for a worker to repair it. Yesterday the worker came and did the job.

Bill had the roof repaired yesterday.

This means: Bill didn't repair the roof himself. He arranged for someone else to do it for him.

Compare:

• Bill repaired the roof. (= he did it himself)

• Bill had the roof repaired. (= he arranged for someone else to do it)

Now study these sentences:

• Did Ann design her business cards herself or did she have them designed?

• Are you going to repair the car yourself, or are you going to have it repaired?

To say that we arrange for someone else to do something for us, we use the structure have
something done. The word order is important: the past participle (done/repaired, etc.) comes
after the object (the roof):                       

*                              have+                     object+                     past participle                          *

Bill                          had                        the roof                            repaired                       yesterday.

Where did you       have                      your hair                           done?

We are                    having                    the house                          painted                        right now.

Tom has just           had                         a telephone                     installed                      in his house.

How often do you     have                      your car                         serviced?

Why don't you          have                      that coat                           cleaned?

I want to                     have                       my picture                        taken.


B.   Get something done" is possible instead of have something done (mainly in informal spoken
English):

• I think you should get your hair cut. (= have your hair cut)

C.   Have something done sometimes has a different meaning. For example:

• He had all his money stolen while he was on vacation.

This doesn't mean that he arranged for somebody to steal his money! "He had all his money stolen" means "All his money stolen."
With this meaning, we use have something done to say that something (often something not nice)
happened to someone: George had his nose broken in a fight. (= his nose was broken)