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I read this today:
"People say, did you used to be an alcoholic?"
now I know that normally one would say "He used to be an alcoholic" (ne'mind the psychopathological issues); but 'used to' doesn't sound right in this case.
what is the grammatical standard for use of use to vs. used to?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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From Bartleby
"We use the verb use in its past tense with an infinitive to indicate a past condition or habitual practice: We used to live in that house. Because the -d in used is not pronounced in these constructions, people sometimes mistakenly leave it out when writing. Thus it is incorrect to write We use to play tennis. When do occurs with this form of use in negative statements and in questions, the situation is reversed, and use to (not used to) is correct: You did not use to play on that team. Didn’t she use to work for your company?"
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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>the situation is reversed (when do occurs)
English.. ya gotta love it.
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Carpal Tunnel
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that is a damn weird word. I mean use(d) is a damn weird word.
formerly known as etaoin...
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old hand
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old hand
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Well, from the outside, it looks perfectly logical to me  . You also say: you wanted to go home, but: did you want to go home?
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Carpal Tunnel
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tswum:
Thanks for bringing this up. I learned from looking around on the net that it is "used" plus an infinitive. I'd not thought about it before and I would have said that it was one of them pesky compound word verbs: used to. Sort of like look up, which was the subject of some discussion here a while back.
I had never seen one like it before, so when I was at the fashion library I looked up her skirt.
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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TEd's got it right about the use of use with a periphrastic do. The use in this case is the infinitive (no, it doesn't need to to be infinitive) and is not modified for person, number, or tense. That's all carried by the do.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Goodness me, what a to-do over one little word.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Quote:
Goodness me, what a to-do over one little word.
I dunno, this use of "use" used to flip me out a little. Still does.
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old hand
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old hand
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this use of "use" used to flip me out a little yeahbut, it is - useful  .
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