Have Something Done

Take a look at these two sentences. What is the difference in meaning between them?

‘I cut my hair.’
‘I have my hair cut.’

‘I cut my hair’ means that I do it myself.
‘I have my hair cut means someone cuts my hair for me (in this case it’s probably a hairdresser).

We use have something done to mean another person does a service for us.

The grammar for this is pretty simple:

Have + object + past participle

Let’s take a look at a few more examples:

‘We didn’t want to cook so we had a pizza delivered.’
‘I had my car washed at that new place by the station.’
‘I had my watch fixed.’

We can also use ‘get’ instead of ‘had’ and the meaning stays the same. The sentences above now become:

‘We didn’t want to cook so we got a pizza delivered.’
‘I got my car washed at that new place by the station.’
‘I got my watch fixed.’

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