Learn English – have + noun + verb

causative-haveverbs

1) One individual had a bullet as a child go right through the left temporal lobe.

2) I had my kids go to bed.

I think '2)had' is 'commend', but I don't think '1)had' is.

then, What does '1)had' mean?

Best Answer

You are correct about #2; had can mean "caused" or "commanded". See definition 6 here.

In sentence #1, the meaning of had is "experienced": he experienced a bullet through the left temporal lobe. See definition 4 here:

4. to experience, undergo, or endure, as joy or pain: Have a good time. He had a heart attack last year.

I think the sentence is not very well-structured, by the way, because "as a child" modifies the individual, not the bullet! It would read better as

One individual had, as a child, a bullet go right through the left temporal lobe.

or

One individual as a child had a bullet go right through the left temporal lobe.

As the sentence is, it's a little bit of a garden path sentence, one that tricks the reader into thinking it means something else until more later in the sentence when the reader realizes he has to go back and re-interpret the sentence.

One individual had a bullet as a child...

looks like one individual possessed a bullet when he was a child, but then we read

...go right through

and we have to go back and say, "Oh, it means experienced, not possessed."

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