Dick,
    I think it's interesting that we can negate "ought to" without adding
a finite (he ought'nt to go), to my ear at least, but can't quite do
that with "used to". The only present time reference I could think of
is a different meaning sense: "That's the hose I use to water the
garden."
    Maybe 'quasi modal' means something like 'part way through the
grammaticalization process.'
    I think I would write "didn't used to", but I can't remember a
conscious attention to it. Of course, we also have "That's the hose I
didn't use to water the garden."  That usage would be clear.

Craig>


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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