I have always thought that “didn’t used to” was incorrect, so I was surprised to see that some handbooks consider it standard. I think it is the pronunciation that causes the confusion and perhaps change. I have had many students write, “I use to” when it was clearly a past situation and needed “ I used to.”

Edith Wollin

 

 

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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