Lately, I've been focusing on causite forms in English. First because I realized I've never used them, and second, because it was about time— I've been avoiding the topic for too long.
Even though I'm far from mastering it, now I have a better understanding of why native English speakers say things like, "You had me going", "It got me thinking," or "I had Elon Musk name one of his satellites after me." (Well, maybe they won't say that.)
Causative forms are a whole world. It's taken me some time to understand and tell apart the differences in meaning between "have", "get," "make," and "let", which are usually the words that you find in causative sentences. My grammar books are smoking right now after so many page fliping. HOWEVER, there's still something I couldn't find in the books, but I've seen on line all the time, and there seems to be some disagreement about whether it's correct, and it's this:
"I had my phone break (on me) and couldn't call you."
"I had the lights go out (on me) and didn't see diddly squat."
"She had her car break down (on her) in the middle of the trip."
I'd really like to get as many of your opinions on this as possible, so I've kind of simplified the task— you just have to say a, b, c...:
a) It's completely wrong. I don't recommend using it.
b) It's wrong, but we use it casually anyway.
c) We use it so much (even though we know it's wrong) that it's become normal.
d )It's right. We use it all the time.
e) Others.
f) All of the above.😂
C. It’s perfectly correct and grammatical and we use it constantly. It’s simply another way of saying: This happened to me: blahblahblah. The “on me” part is used to reinforce “(happened) to me” in the sense that it affected you personally (more on this below). So, “My phone broke on me” means “This happened to me: my phone broke.” “I had the lights go out on me” means “This happened to me: the lights (suddenly) went out.” “She had her car break down on her” means “This happened to her: her car broke down.” It has to be something totally out of your control, obviously, and there’s always an emotive element… frustration, disappointment, surprise, etc. I hope this isn’t too confusing. Let me know if you need me to explain further. I’m a college English professor, and everybody has trouble with this, so don’t feel bad!
You can say the same thing with “go and”: My phone went and died on me.” “My car went and broke down on me.”
C. Sorry for any confusion I caused. I guess I don't use these forms very often so I'm not used to the nuances myself haha
@schmamie Don't worry. I was already confused long before😅 Thank you both!