Two quotations from recently encountered novels:

"There's bad blood now. *Didn't use to* be like that..." (dialog in Alan
Furst's *Spies of the Balkans*, p. 102, Kindle edition).
"She *didn't used to* smoke around the kids..." (Kate Atkinson, *When Will
There Be Good News?*, p. 126, Kindle edition).

So which is it, *didn't use to* or *didn't used to*?

A few usage guides I consulted prescribe "didn't use to," but others say
both are standard. In my own writing, I probably would have used "didn't
used to."

On the one hand, "used to/didn't use to" would parallel other verbs
(laughed/didn't laugh), but, on the other, we're talking about a quasimodal,
and with modals we can expect significant variations from other verbs.
Pronunciation is no help--both "use to" and "used to" are spoken identically
as "useta."

Thoughts?

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