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I am studying English and I want to know the main difference between “Have you got?” and “Do you have?” questions. Are they the same? Is one more formal than the other?

James Waldby - jwpat7
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McSas
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  • Visit our ESL site http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/41665/english-language-learners?referrer=Flyp9GdUZG08GxFV_g6lKw2 – Kris Jan 18 '13 at 07:12

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Contrary to the above, "Have you got" is more common in British English than "Do you have" (about 2:1); but "Do you have" is much more common in American English than "Have you got" (more than 10:1).

Note that the response includes only the relevant auxiliary: - "Do you have a pen"; "Yes, I do". - "Have you got a pen"; "Yes, I have".

In fact, the most common form where I live (in Northern Ireland) is simply "Have you", but that sounds old-fashioned to many English speakers elsewhere.

Have a look at the "Separated by a Common Language" blog.

Ian
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    Where did you get these statistics? Google Ngrams disagrees. – Peter Shor Feb 15 '15 at 12:30
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    I found where you got the statistics: the Separated by a Common Language blog. And one reason for the discrepancy with Google Ngrams is that "do you have" is rapidly gaining over "have you got" both in the US and the UK, and the British National Corpus was collected a decade or so earlier than the Corpus of Contemporary American English, and this time difference substantially increases the (already large) difference between AmE and BrE. – Peter Shor Feb 15 '15 at 12:38
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    Note that the Corpus has nothing at all to say about spoken usage. In AmE I hear "Have you got?" vastly more than I ever hear the other. – Robusto Jun 01 '15 at 16:27
  • 'Note that the response includes only the relevant auxiliary' is true for the practice of most Brits, I'd say, but 'Yes I do' seems used almost invariably by many in the US. "Have you got a pen?" _ "Yes, I do". – Edwin Ashworth Jun 14 '15 at 14:13
  • @EdwinAshworth: Do you have support for that assertion? I've heard that a couple of times now, from Brits, including 40 years ago. But (with no support from my side either) I would say that it is false - certainly "invariable" is false, even qualified by "many". I cannot say whether the proportion of AmE speakers who mix the two is greater than the proportion of BrE speakers who do so. But I would claim that it is rare in the US, in any case. A guess, based on a very small sample, might be that Brits "invariably" believe that Americans "invariably" speak that way. ;-) – Drew Jul 10 '16 at 20:15
  • @Drew: In my experience, "Have you got a pen?" "Yes I do." is quite common in the U.S. That's what I use. (But I suspect "Yes I have" may not be uncommon.) But this is only true of got ... I would expect "Have you done your homework?" to be answered with "yes, I have." – Peter Shor Jul 10 '16 at 20:52
  • @Drew From CalifJim at EnglishForums.com: << Anonymous [from 'Red Dwarf'] : "Have you got a pen?" - The computer responds almost nostalgically: "Yes, I have." That makes sense in British English. // Anonymous "Have you got a pen?" ... "Yes, I do." Not really correct, but accepted in American casual speech. Here the listener has mentally translated "have you got" to "do you have" and answered the latter question, not the original one! Very common in the U.S. >> [reformatted]. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 10 '16 at 22:00
  • @PeterShor: The latter is of course the case, because "Have you done" is answerable by "Yes, I have done it", and "Yes, I do" is not a shortened form of that. IOW, "Yes, I do" shortens "Yes, I do have it", but "Yes, I do" bears no such relation to "Yes, I have done it". There is no literal "do" in "done". – Drew Jul 10 '16 at 22:28
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The two are used for the same purpose, however, "have you got" is somewhat less formal and is popular in American English. So for all intents and purposes you can use them interchangeably. E.g.:

  • Have you got the money?
  • Do you have the money?
RegDwigнt
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Sayan
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The word got generally bears a more informal sound to it, maybe because of its wide range of uses. In contrast, the word do, when used in this manner creates a structure that is probably unique to English. The latter option displays the verb-subject word order used in many other languages, while the former uses the do+subject+verb construction, which probably appeals to the native speaker's ear.

Ponysopher
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"Do you have" has an active connotation through 'do'. "Have you got" has a passive connotation through 'have'.

toplel32
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"Do you have?" means "Are you in possession of?" The answer could be just"Yes"

"Have you got" means "Have you taken possession of" or "Have you received?" The answer could be "Yes, I went to the shop this morning to get it".

Steve
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  • Welcome to EL&U. You may find it helpful to take the tour of this site before answering questions. Please note that answers are expected to be authoritative and substantiated by references were possible - to make it clear that the answers are not mere opinions. Also, please note that "Have you got" can also mean "Are you in possession of?". – TrevorD Jul 10 '16 at 19:19
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    Not in the U.S. In my dialect, "Have you got?" means "Are you in possession of?" And "Have you gotten?" means "Have you received?" And using the wrong one is rare enough that I notice it. – Peter Shor Jul 10 '16 at 20:59
  • Consistent with Peter Shor's comment, I would use got to fill in the blanks in "Have you _____ a quarter I could borrow?" and "Have you _____ your registration papers with you?" and I would use gotten for "Have you _____ your flu shot yet?" and have you _____ your invitation to the wedding?" In those examples, "have you got" = "do you have" (or "are you in possession of") and "have you gotten" = "have you received." – Sven Yargs Jul 11 '16 at 05:55