Dick,
    I would pretty much agree, though I would add that the tension between
grammatical and standard use has had too much of the stage and has
crowded out attention to effective and ineffective.
    I have stopped using "correct" and "incorrect" as much as possible,
though I think students need to be aware of a flexible standard,
especially at the college level. They will, as literate
speakers/writers, be contributors to that standard.
    Students can benefit from exploring how choices at the sentence level
contribute to the construction of an effective text. Reworking surface
forms for correctness is minor in that context.

Craig
    >


Craig:
>
> I'm with you when you write, "I like the idea that most of us seem opposed
> to legislating this one way or the other." A better question than whether
> a
> grammatical form is right or wrong in some absolute sense is whether it is
> or isn't English. If a usage is in widespread use among English speakers,
> it
> is English. That doesn't mean all English is on the same plane. We (and
> our
> students) can and should distinguish between standard and nonstandard
> English, national and regional, formal and informal, prestigious and
> non-prestigious English. The main criterion for standard English is
> whether
> a usage is widely in use among literate speakers. (Yes, this is an inexact
> criterion but a real one; grammarians who like exactitude are in the wrong
> business.) By this criterion, "I used to" is standard while "I use to" is
> not, but both "I didn't use to" and "I didn't used to" are standard.
>
> It is not the job of grammarians to legislate but to observe, describe,
> and
> try to understand. Of course stylists are free to legislate within their
> domain. A publication may, for the sake of consistency, stipulate the use
> of
> one among competing English forms. Will we use 8 a.m., 8 am, or 8 AM? Will
> we use "didn't use to" or "didn't used to"? Will we use "till" or "'til"?
> Will we treat "data" as singular or plural? Will we allow "who" to
> represent
> an object? But no one outside the domain is required to accept these
> stipulations.
>
> As students of language, we believe that actual usage, not the
> pronouncement
> of authorities, determines what is English, but the fact that new
> conventions arise to replace comfortable old ones can make hypocrites of
> us.
> To give a personal example, I continue to cringe when I see "Open 'til
> midnight." I am likely to speak back to the newspaper, "It's not *'til*,
> it's *till*. *Till *has been a perfectly fine preposition in use since Old
> English (and even before, coming from Old Norse *til*). It is NOT a
> contraction of *until*!" But of course my ranting does no good, and, like
> it
> or not, I am forced to admit that *'til *is now so widely used that it has
> now become perfectly standard. History can tell us a lot about our
> language,
> but current usage trumps it every time.
>
> Dick
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 9:51 AM, Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>      "Quasimodal" is a useful category since it denotes similarities and
>> disparities. Grammaticalization as a concept can at least open the
>> possibility that these constructions are on a path toward modal. We can
>> also
>> open up the possibility that grammar patterns exhibit some of the
>> eccentricity (delicacy) we find routine in the lexicon.
>>     One key, I think, with "used to" is not just that it doesn't have a
>> present tense alternative for its modal like meanings, but in a strict
>> sense
>> does not have a nonfinite form (in the same way that "have to"and "be
>> able
>> to" have.) "Use to" isn't fused and has a different meaning. The
>> exception,
>> I guess, might be in the negation examples we have been discussing. The
>> argument for "didn't used to" could include the idea that "used to" has
>> modalized sufficiently to have lost its nonfinite form. That usage
>> shifts
>> back and forth might mean it is still in process and has different
>> status
>> for different people.
>>     It's an interesting problem. I like the idea that most of us seem
>> opposed to legislating this one way or the other.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>
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