Used to...

[J. Eulenberg]

And it sounds like: "I didn't use ta."

Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg <eulenbrg at u.washington.edu>

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, sagehen wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Used to...
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>
> I keep being struck by what seems to me the oddity of the frequently used
> expression, "didn't used to (do sthg)."  Treating, IOW, "used to" as
> invariable.  I would say:
> "I used to do sthg" or
> "I am used to doing sthg" or
> "I did use to do sthg" or
> "I used not to do sthg" or
> "I didn't use to...",
>  but not "I didn't used to do sthg."   In speech, of course, it may be hard
> to say what spelling is intended by the speaker, but I see "didn't used to"
> in print in ordinary narrative discourse, not just dialogue, very often. Is
> this entirely idiosyncratic?
> A. Murie
>