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Darren New wrote:
> Maybe it sounds right if you're British or something? :-)  It was just
> kind of jarring, because it didn't sound right. "Some things would
> better have been left imperfect" is the closest I can think of. You need
> the "should" or "would" in there, methinks.
> 
	According to this page: http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/029.html

<quote>
Had better is an idiomatic verb phrase meaning ?ought to, must.? It
resembles an auxiliary verb in that its form never changes to show
person or tense and that it can?t follow another verb in a phrase
(that is, you can?t say He will had better leave, for example).
</quote>

	So I understand Tim's sentence as meaning: "Some things which ought
to have been left imperfect"

		Jerome

PS: However English is not my native language either, so I can't
comment on how frequent this use is (however I think I have already
seen it several times in books...)

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******************************
*      Jerome M. Berger      *
*  mailto:jeb### [at] freefr   *
*  http://jeberger.free.fr/  *
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