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Consider these two sentences, please:

  • We had a strange woman come to the door selling pictures.

  • We had a man singing to us as we sat in the restaurant having our meal.

Can I use the progressive form of the verb 'have' in the above two examples. For instance,

  • We were having a strange woman come to the door selling pictures.

  • We were having a man singing to us as we sat in the restaurant having our meal.

And what does the verb 'have' mean in those examples?

Edwin Ashworth
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Mr. X
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2 Answers2

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This is an "affective" construction. The subject of "have" is affected somehow by the event or condition described in the rest of the sentence. It is similar (I am told) to the Japanese adversative passive construction, except in English the affect isn't necessarily bad.

The subject is typically the same as some possessive in the body of the sentence, sometimes implicitly. "I have a hole in the pocket" means "I have a hole in my pocket". Or at least, the subject has to be connected somehow to the event or condition described after "have".

There can be ambiguity with the "have" of causatives. You could say "I had a hole in the pocket" meaning that I caused there to be a hole in the pocket (as I was trying to fix the trousers, say).

Greg Lee
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We had a mechanic look at the brakes

shows the [have + noun phrase + bare infinitive] construction, where 'have' is causative and 'had a mechanic look at' paraphrases to 'got a mechanic to look at', so 'have' has an 'engineer / implement / arrange for something to happen' sense.

However, in

We had a strange woman come to the door selling pictures

which shows the same [have + noun phrase + bare infinitive] surface construction, there is no arranging of the event by us. 'Have' here is non-causative, and 'We had" is a sentence-introducing element meaning basically 'This happened to us: a strange ...'.

One could say that 'have' here is, as in 'We had a nice holiday', a quasi-possessive (it's part of our history), but it's probably best to see 'We had ...' as used here merely as a short sentence-introducer, fronting 'we' before the main event, with 'have' almost a bleached-of-meaning function word (compare a in French Il y a).

It is unidiomatic to use 'We were having a strange woman come to the door selling pictures'. Though as BoldBen points out,

We were having a woman ring us as a wrong number so often that we blacklisted her number

and (after Greybeard)

We were having strange men and women come to the door selling pictures

both use the 'experiencing', definitely non-causitive sense of 'have', are certainly acceptable. It is the plausibility of the repeated occurrence that governs idiomaticity.

Sorry, no supporting references.

Edwin Ashworth
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  • Excellent! So, can I just say 'have' here ='quasi-possessive/figurative possession/experience'? Can I write this 'have' as 'have got' in the present tense since 'have' indicates possession here(although not literal)? Can I also say it is because of this possessive nature the 'have' is not used in progressive tenses? – Mr. X Feb 29 '20 at 13:46
  • How about "We were having a woman ring us as a wrong number so often that we blacklisted her number"? In this case the 'having' is definitely non-causitive (she was anoying rather than helpful) but her calls were a continual nuisance. – BoldBen Feb 29 '20 at 13:50
  • Yes, that's certainly a situation where 'dummy' have can be used in a repetitive sense. Idiomaticity depends on the likelihood of the repeat action. Do you mind if I add that to the answer, @BoldBen? – Edwin Ashworth Feb 29 '20 at 14:02
  • @BoldBen, in your sentence, I think, that 'have =experience' happened on multiple occasions. – Mr. X Feb 29 '20 at 14:32
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    It may be worth mentioning that, and I'm not sure why, "We were having strange women coming to the door selling pictures." sounds quite natural. With a single woman, I think the construction would be "we used to have a strange woman come... -- In this case, the meaning of "to have" is "to experience" – Greybeard Feb 29 '20 at 15:56
  • Good first point, though I'd say "We used to have a strange woman who came ..." or "There used to be ..." sound more idiomatic (idiomaticity is hard to gauge when strange women picture salespersons were always thin on the ground). – Edwin Ashworth Feb 29 '20 at 16:08
  • @Greybeard, I think it's again the 'repetition' thing. In BoldBen's example, one person did a particular thing many times, and in your example, a particular action was done by many people. – Mr. X Feb 29 '20 at 16:18
  • @RizanMalik It is also possible to say "We were having a mechanic check the brakes when he found that there was corrosion in the bodywork". That's only a single occurrence – BoldBen Mar 01 '20 at 15:10
  • It is not 'causative have', right? @BoldBen – Mr. X Mar 01 '20 at 15:18
  • @EdwinAshworth I'd be honoured! – BoldBen Mar 01 '20 at 15:20
  • @RizanMalik It is causative in that case by my understanding because the speaker had asked the mechanic to look at the brakes. The reason for "having" being used instead of "had" is that he noticed the corrosion while he was looking at the brakes (noticing the corrosion was incidental to the request). He would not have seen the corrosion if he had not been asked to examine the brakes. If you found that the door bell wasn't working because you were "having a woman come round selling pictures" that would not be causative. – BoldBen Mar 02 '20 at 16:26
  • ... Yes, 'causative' here is a 'technical' usage meaning 'bringing about' in a broader sense than direct causation. Even 'arranging for' is included, as are 'facilitate', 'enable'. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 02 '20 at 16:54