Mon, Sep 26, 2005, 03:13 pm
(c)
Many people say 'I better' as in 'I better go home'. I would think it's more correct to say 'I had better go home', although the best is probably 'I should go home'. Is this use of 'better' a slang or colloquial saying? MSWord had no grammar problems with 'I better go home' - what do you think?
Source of Question, Date of Response
Fort Myers Beach, Florida Thu, Feb 5, 2004
Grammar's Response
There's nothing wrong with the idiomatic "I had better [or 'I'd better'] go home." In casual situations, writers and speakers will dispense with the "had" or its contracted form: "I better go home." That should never happen in formal contexts. The omission of the "had" is much more common, apparently, in the U.S. than elsewhere.
Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. Used with the permission of Oxford University Press.