Re: V2 (plus Géarthnuns serendipity)

DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
> I've understood where you were going with this, and the usage you cite may
> well be going this way, but my idiolect is as yet unwilling (though I use
> the forms you're talking about in informal speech) to concede that this is
> nothing more than the original contracted auxiliary
Certainly at present.  I may have mis-stated the original argument.  I
believe the author had actually said that "better" was in an *early*
stage of evolving towards auxilliary status.

> Why the former permits the aux. to be dropped while the latter doesn't, I
> have no idea.
Perhaps because "rather" is still seen as a verb?

How *did* the form "had better" develop?

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