Today's English lesson

From the American Heritage Book of English Usage:


Better Business



Had better is an idiomatic verb phrase meaning “ought to, must.” It resembles an auxiliary verb in that its form never changes to show person or tense and that it can’t follow another verb in a phrase (that is, you can’t say

He will had better leave.

for example).

When speaking, people have a tendency to leave out had:

You better clean up your room!

But in writing, you had better keep had, either in full or as a contraction:

You had better not do that.

or

You’d better not do that.