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June 2011

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Subject:
From:
Brad Johnston <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 14 Jun 2011 08:26:55 -0700
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For the first, a good rule to follow is that quotes don't count. Whatever was said is whatever was said. 
 
If the second one is not a quote, follow the guidance provided by, She used to smoke, she didn't used to smoke, she never used to smoke.  ("When Arthur had been a boy, he had used to play football", Rodney Huddleston et al in the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, page 151. "Whatever was written is whatever was written"  :)
 
 
From: Dick Veit <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 10:45 AM
Subject: didn't use(d) to


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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