Have something done and get something done in English

There is a sentence English learners say every week, and it is almost always wrong. I cut my hair yesterday. Did you? Did you stand in front of the mirror with a pair of scissors and do it yourself? Almost certainly not. You paid someone. The English for that is I had my hair cut, and the structure behind it is called the causative.

The causative is how English says "I did not do this job, but I am the reason it got done." It is everywhere in ordinary speech, it is not difficult, and getting it wrong makes you sound like you spend your weekends fixing your own car and painting your own house.

have something done

The core pattern is three pieces long:

have + object + past participle

I had my hair cut.She had the house painted.We are having a new roof fitted.

Look at the order. The thing comes before the action. I had my hair cut, never I had cut my hair (which means something else entirely: it is the past perfect, and it means you had already cut it yourself). Word order is the whole game here.

The past participle is the same form you use in the passive voice, and for good reason: the causative is passive in feel. Somebody cut the hair; the hair received the action; the person who did the cutting is usually not worth naming. When you do want to name them, add a by-phrase: I had my hair cut by a friend.

get something done

Get does the same job in a more casual register:

I got my car fixed.She got her eyes tested last week.Can you get that letter sent today?

The two are interchangeable often enough that you can pick either without much risk, but there are tendencies worth knowing.

• Get is more informal. In an email to a client, write we had the report checked. In the pub, say we got it checked.
• Get suggests a bit of effort, that you had to organise it or chase it up. It took a month, but I finally got the roof fixed.
• In orders and advice, get wins. Get your hair cut. Get that tooth looked at. Have your hair cut sounds oddly formal, like a school rule.

Across the tenses

The tense sits on have or get. The participle never moves.

Have in this structure is a full verb, not an auxiliary, so it takes do in questions and negatives: Did you have your hair cut? I did not have the house painted. Not had you your hair cut.

have someone do and get someone to do

The patterns above hide the worker. When you want to name the person doing the job, English switches to an active shape, and the two verbs take different forms.

• have + person + bare infinitive. I had the builder look at the roof.
• get + person + to-infinitive. I got my brother to help me.

That is the pattern to memorise, because there is no logic to it. Have takes the plain verb; get takes to. Say I had him fix it and I got him to fix it, never I had him to fix it.

The two are not quite synonyms. Have someone do something is neutral, often professional, and implies you were in a position to ask. Get someone to do something suggests you had to work on them a bit: persuasion, favours, nagging. I had my assistant book the tickets is a job. I got my brother to book the tickets is a small victory.

make and let: the rest of the family

Two more verbs belong here, and both take the bare infinitive.

• make + person + bare infinitive means force. The teacher made us write it again. They made me wait an hour.
• let + person + bare infinitive means allow. My mother never let me go out after dark. Let me try.

So the four-way set is:

One trap: make loses its bare infinitive in the passive and takes to back. Active they made me wait; passive I was made to wait. Let has almost no passive (the fixed phrase be let go, meaning lose your job, aside), so English falls back on allow: not I was let go out, but I was allowed to go out.

The bad-news use

The same have + object + past participle shape covers events nobody asked for.

I had my phone stolen on the bus.She had her window broken by a boy with a ball.He had his car clamped outside the station.

Nothing was arranged. Something happened to the speaker, and the speaker is telling you about it as something they suffered rather than something they did. My phone was stolen is the plain passive and says the same thing more coldly; I had my phone stolen puts the victim back in the sentence.

There is no grammatical difference between this and I had my hair cut. Only the meaning of the words tells you which reading applies, and it nearly always does. Nobody pays to have their phone stolen.

Common mistakes

Ranked by how often they actually show up.

1. Using the plain active for a job you paid for. I cut my hair, I fixed my car, I painted the house. Unless you really did the work, these need the causative: I had my hair cut, I got my car fixed, I had the house painted. This is by far the most common error and the reason the topic exists.
2. Wrong word order. I had cut my hair is not the causative; the object must sit between have and the participle. I had my hair cut.
3. Using the base verb instead of the participle. I had my car fix. It has to be fixed. The thing receives the action, so you need the participle.
4. have him to do it. Have and make take the bare infinitive, not the to-infinitive. Only get takes to. See gerund and infinitive for the wider pattern of which verbs take which form.
5. Treating have as an auxiliary in questions. Have you your hair cut? is wrong. It is Did you have your hair cut?

Practice

Rewrite or complete each sentence. Answers are below.

1. Someone cleaned my coat for me last week. (Rewrite with have.)
2. I must ___ my eyes ___ before I drive again. (have + test)
3. My brother helped me because I asked him again and again. (Rewrite with get someone to.)
4. The boss forced us to stay late. (Rewrite with make.)
5. Someone stole her bike outside the school. (Rewrite with have, from the owner's point of view.)

Answers: 1. I had my coat cleaned last week. 2. have / tested 3. I got my brother to help me. 4. The boss made us stay late. 5. She had her bike stolen outside the school.