"How do I stop saying 'I had my car stolen'"?

April 18, 2023 2:55 PM

I was asked what made her say "I had my car stolen", since she never paid anyone to steal her car., and that she never asked anyone as a favor to steal her car. She said "What made me say what I didn't mean to say just when t comes to my car?" I said, "I don't know, but is a car the only thing you say what you don't mean about?

She said that yes, she says that when she burned her food she said that she burned her food, when she ruined her sweater in the washer, she said that she ruined her sweater, etc. She has a Masters in English literature. So, what do you think is the answer?

posted by amfgf to Writing & Language (18 answers total)

Best answer: It's idiomatic, if not common, English to use this kind of construction when describing something, usually negative, that happened independently of your will (in the past). "I was already running late, and then I had the car break down on me." "In the accident, she had her leg broken in five places." "We were trying to cross the border with cheese, but we had a customs agent catch us." "I had my hair catch on fire in the middle of the perm!!!"

I imagine it's an evolution from the general use of "had x done" to imply you arranged to have it done by a third person to a more peculiar one of emphasizing that the action involving the subject is being carried out by an independent third party.
posted by praemunire at 3:01 PM on April 18, 2023 [10 favorites]

Best answer: I don't think the "had car stolen" means "paid someone to do it" any more specifically than it means "this happened to me." In English, "have" plays all kinds of roles, and here it's sort of an auxiliary for setting up a passive construction without a known agent.
posted by less-of-course at 3:08 PM on April 18, 2023 [29 favorites]

Best answer: The verb to have is heavily overloaded in English; this dictionary lists 15 different uses. You are thinking of the use of 'had' meaning 'to require someone to do something' -- such as she had her car washed, which I think is in close connection with the transitive use meaning 'to own something' -- she had a car, now she does not have a car.

But the sense that it is being used in 'to experience especially by submitting to, undergoing, or suffering' -- in the same way that my dad had a heart attack, which is in closer connection to the auxiliary verb where have forms a past tense.
posted by Superilla at 3:13 PM on April 18, 2023 [23 favorites]

Best answer: Yeah your friend is correct. It means something like, "It happened to me that my car was stolen."

In principle it could mean the other thing, too, although I'm stretching to come up with a context where that reading makes sense. Something like: "Guess what I just did. I had my car stolen." By saying it's something I did, I rule out the reading where it just happened to me, suggesting that I hired someone to steal my car for some reason.
posted by grobstein at 3:20 PM on April 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Not the reason why, but I wonder if this grates because it's less efficient than other options available in English, like "my car was stolen" (four words vs five for "I had my car stolen")? It bothers me similarly when people use "of" unnecessarily ("too big of a mouthful to swallow" when "too big a mouthful to swallow" is perfectly correct and sounds neater to my ear somehow), even though I accept that it's a common, widespread (especially in US English but increasingly in UK English too) idiomatic usage.
posted by terretu at 3:30 PM on April 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Your question was really difficult to understand. What are you asking? Is your question 'is the phrase 'I had my car stolen' grammatically correct? Answered above, she's using the phrase in a common and acceptable way and you're twisting it into some other meaning. Or are you asking on her behalf how she can stop using the phrase 'I had car stolen'? Just say 'my car was stolen' instead. I get the vibe that you're the one questioning her wording. She is saying what she means, to imply otherwise is some weird gaslighting-like behavior.
posted by emd3737 at 4:12 PM on April 18, 2023 [41 favorites]

Best answer: I had my car stolen, I had my hair cut - something was done to me.
My car was stolen, My book was lost - a thing happened.
I burned dinner, I walked the dog - I did a thing.
posted by theora55 at 4:26 PM on April 18, 2023 [8 favorites]

Best answer: Is this a dialog amongst members of a system or plural?
posted by the Real Dan at 5:05 PM on April 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: "I had my car stolen" is a perfectly reasonable way to say the thing she was trying to say, and absent additional context I'd never think it meant she paid to have it done.

There's a difference in your examples that seems very clear to me between what she actively did and what was done to her. "I did X" is for things she did like the food or sweater; I had X happen to me" is for things like the car that were done by a third party.
posted by Stacey at 5:38 PM on April 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: "I had my car stolen" can mean EITHER

a) I arranged/organised for my car to be stolen; OR

b) without any input/encouragement whatsoever from me, some stranger stole my car. I experienced my car being stolen.

From context, it's pretty obvious that she means b)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 12:08 AM on April 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: So, what do you think is the answer?

What's the question?
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 3:42 AM on April 19, 2023 [11 favorites]

Best answer: It's worth noting that, although they describe the same event, these two different constructions do change the grammatical subject, and thus the rhetorical emphasis, of the sentence. "My car was stolen" puts the emphasis on the car. "I had my car stolen" puts the emphasis on me. So for example, if you asked me where my car was, I might say "my car was stolen" to put the emphasis on what happened to the car. If you asked me why I was so upset, I might say "I had my car stolen" to put the emphasis on the effect that the theft had on my emotional state.
posted by firechicago at 4:05 AM on April 19, 2023 [6 favorites]

Best answer: There are plenty of other common usages that don't stand up to scrutiny. For example, "The quarterback broke his leg when two defensive linemen fell on him."
posted by SemiSalt at 6:33 AM on April 19, 2023

Best answer: "I had my car stolen" is a perfectly legit construction in English to describe an event in the past in passive voice. It's using "had" as the helper verb, similar to one of the ways passe compose can be used in French.

The phrase would be the same if she had compelled someone to steal her car, but in that case, the verb "to have" would be serving in a more primary role. The difference between the two meanings is something you have to get through context. They're both correct in their own way.
posted by desuetude at 9:24 PM on April 19, 2023

Response by poster: I gave most of you best answer. Thank you.

Some little punk in the rocket,

"So, what do you think is the answer? What's the question?"
The question is how do I help her not to say "I had my car stolen" She said there is no way I can ever hear myself saying "I had my toes stepped on" for example. What is it about a car that made me say that? I don't want to be accused of having said ....and then have to defend myself saying but "I didn't mean ...."
posted by amfgf at 12:57 PM on April 21, 2023

Response by poster: "She said that yes, its's only about her cars. She says that when she burned her food, she said that she burned her food, ..." She says she doesn't like create misunderstandings for nothing, whether it's by people from other parts of the world, or by a percentage of the locals. Someone told her not to buy cars that are too interesting to pass.
posted by amfgf at 4:53 PM on April 21, 2023

Response by poster: the Real Dan,
Sorry. I've been thinking about your question,
"Is this a dialog amongst members of a system or plural?"
Would you ask me in different words? I don't understand.
posted by amfgf at 10:59 AM on April 22, 2023

Response by poster: Semisalt, yes, "The quarterback broke his leg when two defensive linemen fell on him." goes unnoticed.
posted by amfgf at 4:43 PM on May 24, 2023