Better be

Swiss Jake wrote:

Hi Goodman, one of your examples confused me: He had better study hard if he were to expect to go to Stanford – future. He would better study hard if he were excpected to go to Standford. Can you say it like that? Would it be different in its meaning? He had or would better study hard if he wants to go to Standford. How does that differ? Plus, when a stencentce starts with "somebody" or "it", can you make the contradiction? It'd better not be rotten. Sombody'd better be here when he arrives. I can't imagine to actually say that... ___________________________ Hi SwissJ, If I am not mistaken, you may be confused with the use of “had better” as in “you’d better go to bed before you mother comes home”. There is no such use of “would better”, at least not to my shallow knowledge. I consider the “had better” question as an idiomatic one rather than a grammatical one.  When constructing a sentence with “You / he /they had better +verb ...... “had better” has no ties at all with participles. I think if there is any error in my example, it may be the notation “future” at the end of the sentence. Otherwise, I believe it is correct. >>He had better study hard if he were to expect to go to Stanford – future.<<   Thank you! Jake

Dear Paco,

There is nothing wrong with your sentence. My example is a conditional statement and therefore “If he were to expect ….” is correct to my knowledge. Just like this one:

If he were spending his time studying instead of partying, he would have been graduated a year ago- hypothetical / conditional.

 This statement implies the fact that he is not able to graduate.