We better get going, don't we/hadn't we?

[Marika33]

Some people reduce "had" in this construction "We'd better do it" and say "We better do it".
In this case does the tag question still require 'had'?

We'd better get going, don't we?
We'd better get going, hadn't we?

We better get going, don't we? (?)
We better get going, hadn't we? (?)
We better get going, shall we? (?)
We better get going, shouldn't we? (?)
We better get going, don't you think? (?)

 

[jutfrank]

Some people reduce "had" in this construction "We'd better do it" and say "We better do it".

I've always argued that people don't do this. I mean, they sometimes do fail to articulate the 'had' (and they accordingly write it with 'had' missing), but I say it's still 'there', grammatically.

In this case does the tag question still require 'had'?

We'd better get going, don't we?
We'd better get going, hadn't we?

Yes, because the auxiliary 'had' is still 'there', grammatically, even if it's not articulated.

We better get going, don't we? (?)
We better get going, hadn't we? (?)
We better get going, shall we? (?)
We better get going, shouldn't we? (?)
We better get going, don't you think? (?)

They're all wrong. Firstly, you need to use had better in each case. Secondly, even with had better, only the second and fifth are right.