always used to

Travis   Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:44 am GMT
Well, actually, ["just:u:] tends to come out more like ["jus:tu:] much of the time in reality for me.
Pos   Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:17 am GMT
<Well, actually, ["just:u:] tends to come out more like ["jus:tu:] much of the time in reality for me. >

So again, why do you, personally, write it with the "d" in all cases.
Liz   Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:53 am GMT
<<I favor "used to", because in more careful speech here you can actually hear (and I myself have) ["just:u:] or, even more carefully, ["ju:st:u:], indicating that there is an underlying /tt/ or /dt/ cluster present.>>

I thought no-one pronounced the cluster unless he works for the BBC. Probably not even then. ;-)
Travis   Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:24 pm GMT
>>So again, why do you, personally, write it with the "d" in all cases.<<

Because I consider the underlying form to be /"justtu/ (/"juzdtu in more formal speech aside), and that forms with just [st] or with [s:t] rather than [st:] being due to synchronic pronunciation variations (due to [st] and [s:t] being "easier" to pronounce than [st:], so to speak). And as for why I write it with "d", that's because such is following the conventional orthography, even though I actually have /t/ rather than /d/ present most of the time.
Travis   Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:37 pm GMT
>><<I favor "used to", because in more careful speech here you can actually hear (and I myself have) ["just:u:] or, even more carefully, ["ju:st:u:], indicating that there is an underlying /tt/ or /dt/ cluster present.>>

I thought no-one pronounced the cluster unless he works for the BBC. Probably not even then. ;-)<<

My dialect likes long consonants, and tends to only shorten them in fast speech - and even then they are preserved quite often, and are often created in informal speech where they don't exist in more formal speech through assimilation and elision. In this case, though, I generally have ["just:u:] only in more careful speech due to its shifting to ["jus:tu:] in more informal speech; I will at times say ["justu:] at times, but honestly that sounds a bit off to me outside of fast speech.
Guest   Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:46 pm GMT
< And as for why I write it with "d", that's because such is following the conventional orthography, even though I actually have /t/ rather than /d/ present most of the time. >

How would you deal with "fought", "filed" "photograph", etc.? Would you change their spellings to those which YOU think you hear?
Pos   Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:59 pm GMT
I don't understand Travis' reasoning. Surely the sentence below follows the normal infinite pattern after "did" questions:

"When you were a kid, did you use to think the sun revolved around the earth?"

Would Travis also do this?

When you were a kid, did you liked think the sun revolved around the earth?
Guest   Tue Jul 17, 2007 3:15 pm GMT
Sorry, I meant...

"When you were a kid, did you liked to think the sun revolved around the earth?"

Is that what you would suggest, Travis?
Travis   Tue Jul 17, 2007 3:29 pm GMT
>>How would you deal with "fought", "filed" "photograph", etc.? Would you change their spellings to those which YOU think you hear?<<

I was specifically speaking of "used" here.

One note here is that I tend to follow the idea of having one universal orthography for English and of not assuming that the orthography will directly correspond to actual pronunciation or even wording (due to cliticization not being represented in writing much of the time) at all. Consequently, I have no qualms with writing "used" even where my own dialect has /t/.

(And as orthographic reform goes, the sort of orthographic designs that I favor are actually underlyingly morphophonemic/etymological/diachronic in nature, so even in such a context I do not assume that writing would correlate directly wth speech.)
Pos   Tue Jul 17, 2007 3:37 pm GMT
Is Travis making up his own rules?

This is how it was and is, for most good speakers:

"The American Heritage® Book of English Usage.
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.


1. Grammar: Traditional Rules, Word Order, Agreement, and Case


§ 65. used to
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? "
Travis   Tue Jul 17, 2007 4:40 pm GMT
Pos, can you please stop trolling, okay? I'm not sure where you are getting any of this from, especially considering that I was not even talking about the use of of "used to" but rather its spelling and pronunciation...
Jérémy   Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:12 pm GMT
Here's the reason for my question. Taken out of the British National Corpus:

"So what did you used to do of an evening down at home?"
"Did you used to go and help on the farm as well?"
"Where did you used to roam?"
"What sort of fish did you used to get?"
"How deep did you used to dredge it out?"

Etc. Plenty of examples.
Pos   Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:47 pm GMT
<Pos, can you please stop trolling, okay? I'm not sure where you are getting any of this from, especially considering that I was not even talking about the use of of "used to" but rather its spelling and pronunciation... >

Excuse me, I'm not trolling. You said that you would spell "used to" with a "d" even when it appeared in negative sentences and questions. That doesn't make sense. "Did" questions and negatives always use the infinitive form. So, why do you want to change that fact?
M56   Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:04 pm GMT
"So what did you used to do of an evening down at home?"

From: <<periodical
Keywords Popular culture - Ireland - Periodicals; Popular music - Periodicals
popular music >>


An example of Irish English, I think.

"Did you used to go and help on the farm as well?"

<<Dialect. Nottingham.>>

"Where did you used to roam?"
"What sort of fish did you used to get?"
"How deep did you used to dredge it out?"


<<sociology; memories of working on a dredger and crane driving at Ipswich docks during the nineteen twenties and thirties>>
M56   Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:20 pm GMT
This is the way I've always known it to be in Standard English:

Did you use to like... ("Used to" is an ordinary verb, there.)
I used not to like... (It's an auxiliary verb there.)