> > I am not exactly sure of the rules of grammar regarding this instance, but I will look them up and let people know. I will say that on first impressions the use of 'have' does actually look correct on the page. Reading the sentences and using 'has' seems to grate on my British sense of grammar, so I'll go with 'have'.
> >

I seem to recall distinct syntactical differences between British -type English (BE) and North American English. In BE 'have' is an auxillary verb in conjunction with 'got'; but "have" is a main verb in NA. For example, I wonder if Beasty could take a look at these sentences and say which 'feels better' to his ear?:

BE: 'You have (got) the new Rowling book, haven't you?'

NA: "You have the new Rowling book, don't you?"

I've been reading the first Harry Potter book and backwards-comparing it to C.S. Lewis and Conan Doyle, and basically realizing that "Standard English" is... well... not necessarily so Standard.


> But FORTNIGHT??? "Fortnight" is not used in American English? Are you guys serious? What do you call half a month, then? Or don't you call it anything? I never even imagined this word wasn't standard English everywhere.

Well, Furlongs per (Fortnight)^squared equals Measure of Acceleration in advanced gopher-tunnelling... C'mon, everyone knows THAT. Truly, Brunnen-G and I are shocked at the depths of ignorance being displayed here, guys.