You (are/had) better

Question

I am familiar with the expression "had better" to be appropriate when giving advice to someone, but I see other versions as well.

How should I use the following:

You better ...
You are better ...
You had better ...

What do we say when we want to make a recommendation to someone?

If you are recommending X over Y to someone, the second form is more idiomatically of the form "You are better served by X than by Y." — Lawrence, Mar 29 '16 at 07:09
Closely related but not a duplicate: 1 “Had better” — what is the meaning of this grammatically? and 2. I'd better vs I better — Mari-Lou A, Mar 29 '16 at 07:53

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 29 '16 at 05:30

If you are exhorting or mildly threatening someone, you would say "You had better."

"We use had better to refer to the present or the future, to talk about actions we think people should do or which are desirable in a specific situation. The verb form is always had, not have. We normally shorten it to ’d better in informal situations. It is followed by the infinitive without to:

It’s five o’clock. I’d better go now before the traffic gets too bad."

Cambridge Dictionaries Online

Thanks. So we also use a bare infinitive after "has better", yes? And what about those other two ones please? — Franky, Mar 29 '16 at 05:45

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 29 '16 at 06:58

The formula normally is "You had better go home now". I hold the view that "had" is a subjunctive form, an indicative doesn't make any sense. And "had better" is always followed by a bare infinitive.

But as this "had" is a bit queer there is a tendency to drop "had" and say: You better go home now.

Your variant with "you are" is wrong.

You (are/had) better

2 Answers2