may have used to

Hello

Is "may have used to" a standard form?

e.g.

"Well, he may have used to live in Africa, but it doesn't naturally follow that he understands African ways."

It's probably better to say:

"Well, maybe he used to live in Africa, but it doesn't naturally follow that he understands African ways."

or

"Well, he may have [once] lived in Africa, but it doesn't naturally follow that he understands African ways."

It's unclear that "may have used to" is positively wrong, though.

It's a completely normal sentence. If I read that somewhere it would not draw my attention in the slightest.

You can say, "He might used to have lived" but it's got a familar sound to it

That's how leed talk around where I won

I think "Well, he might have lived in Africa, but it doesn't naturally follow that he understands African ways" would be acceptable as well and sounds the most natural. "Might" implies the may or may not aspect of the action "live" and the tense inherently implies that the action happened and was completed in the past.

<< That's how leed talk around where I won >>

I don't understand - what do you mean by 'leed'? And what did you win?

Oi, Caspian: I'm disappointed in you.
You don't even recognize an English word like "won"?
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=won&gwp=16

I think that the issue is that you have three modal verbs, for a total of four verbs in one verb phrase, which is verging on excessive. But opinions will vary as to whether that's a problem.

People need to stop misleading foreigners. I mean, that sentence may not win the Nobel Prize for elegance, but it is a standard everyday sentence which you could read anywhere written by anyone.

<I think that the issue is that you have three modal verbs>

Three? How so?

May, have, used

Is "have" a modal verb, AG? Where did you hear that?

Of course it's a modal verb. Check any dictionary. From answers.com :

v.aux.
Used with a past participle to form the present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect tenses indicating completed action: The troublemaker has gone for good. I regretted that I had lost my temper. They will have finished by the time we arrive.

Do you know the difference between an auxiliary and a modal auxiliary, AG?

Looks like Another Guest has escaped questioning again.