What are your pet peeves re English usage?

dlowan wrote:

Francis wrote:
dlowan wrote:
"Previously, old people were not in the habit of driving..."

...one crazy?

Ce n'est pas la province seulement du vieux pour conduire un fou.

He used to have a province to drive a fool? Shocked

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Francis wrote:

dlowan wrote:
Francis wrote:
dlowan wrote:
"Previously, old people were not in the habit of driving..."

...one crazy?

Ce n'est pas la province seulement du vieux pour conduire un fou.

He used to have a province to drive a fool?

Fools are provincial?

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No, they are proverbial...

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I should make some provisions now ...

... at the provost's, I think.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

I should make some provisions now ...

... at the provost's, I think.

Yes, Walter, be provisional...

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Francis wrote:

No, they are proverbial...

Ah! Then, the sweet and bitter fool
Will presently appear
The one in motley here
The other found out there....

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McTag wrote:

Here's a genuine question: I'm puzzled

In the Guardian newspaper today, I saw the following:

"Old people didn't used to drive...."

That looks so awkward, yet it is what we say. Is it correct, or should the writed have found another construction?

I think it is incorrect btw.

(But it is correct to say "I used to...", so logic says I'm wrong.)

I can't see anything at all wrong with it, McTag. A bit on the casual side maybe, but most of language actually resides in that area.

Every bit of language is useful some place or t'other, so why would we want to avoid any particular collocation.

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For once, I agree with both McTag and JTT. To me also the construction seems lame and awkward. But, upon examination, there seems to be nothing wrong with it grammatically.

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"I used not to..."

"I didn't use to..."

I think Clary had it right.

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Clary wrote:

It is grammatically correct to put They usedn't (or used not) to or They didn't USE to
However this practice looks rather outdated now.

I agree, all are grammatical. I'm not sure which one [or ones] you're suggesting is outdated Clary but "didn't used to" is in relatively common use for a structure which itself, is not all that common.

The first two sound dated and strange to my ear.

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As JTT is the champion of usage, his 'didn't used to' appears to be favourite for the future. However, I keep on saying 'used not to' in my fogeyish way.

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Clary wrote:

As JTT is the champion of usage, his 'didn't used to' appears to be favourite for the future. However, I keep on saying 'used not to' in my fogeyish way.

Clary,

Your choice is fine and I cannot comment on how 'fogeyish' it may be for I'm not that familair with BrE usage. Quite obvioulsy there are dialectal differences at play here and there may well be age differences also.

Any sensible person champions usage as a measure of correct language for there is nothing else that can guide us in language use.

The trick is in keeping certain uses reserved for certain registers. That's where these prescriptivists have erred [and continue to err] so badly in describing language. Well, there and a number of other areas too.

What was it that the linguist Dwight Bolinger said? Let me google it so I don't mess it up with a paraphrase. ... , ... ,

I found it.

"Usage in the broad sense is always the determinator of correctness. The only way to falsify that assertion is to imagine that language somehow preceded its users ..." (D Bolinger)

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what a load of old bollocksinger

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Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

what a load of old bollocksinger

I'm all for robust debate. What I think Steve is getting at here, is the notion that just becaus a lot, or most, people adopt a certain usage does no automatically make it correct. It makes it preferable, ipso facto, in their eyes. It may provide a useful shortcut. It may be appropriate to the particular register they wish to pitch to. But that's all.
Being appropriate, or trendy, in one register does not make it correct in all.

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McTag wrote:

Here's a genuine question: I'm puzzled

In the Guardian newspaper today, I saw the following:

"Old people didn't used to drive...."

That looks so awkward, yet it is what we say. Is it correct, or should the writed have found another construction?

Personally, I write "didn't use to". "Didn't" already refers to the past, and it sounds awkward to point to it twice. But on consulting Brian Garner's "Modern American usage", it appears this isn't the most common usage, at least not in America. Here is what Garner's Modern American Usage has to say (several case names omitted):

[b]Didn't used to, didn't use to[/b] [i]Didn't used to[/i] (= formerly didn't) is the informal equivalent of the standard form [i]never used to[/i] and the rarely encountered phrase [i]used not to [/i] -- [[i]skip some examples, T.[/i]] It shouldn't be written [i]didn't use to[/i], although this point has stirred up some controversy among usage pundits. The argument goes that [i]didn't[/i] supplies the past tense, and the main verb that follows should be in the present tense, as it is in a sentence such as [i]You didn't have [[/i]not [i] had) to do that[/i]. But [i]used to [/i]is an idiomatic phrase based on an archaic meaning of [i]use[/i] (= to be in a babit of).The form of the verb is fixed in the positive [i]used to[/i] and is unchanged in the far less common (and far less accepted) negative form, [i]didn't used to.[/i] How do we know this? After all, when the phrase is spoken, the [i]-d[/i] of [i]used[/i] is drowned out by the [i]t[/i] of [i]to[/i] The proponents of [i]didn't use to[/i] make much of this, arguing that since we can't resolve the usage question by listening to speakers, we have to decide on the basis of traditional grammar. But in fact, we can draw an inference from pronanunciation of the -[i]s[/i] in [i]use [/i](/yooz/) and [i]used[/i] (/yoost/), and it strongly supports the idiomatic phrase[i] didn't used to[/i]. And in modern print sources, [i]didn't used to[/i] is about four times as common as [i]didn't use to.[/i] When [i]didn't use to [/i] does appear, it commonly occurs in transcribed speech -- e.g.: "'She was engulfed by a lake that [i]didn't use to [/i] be there," said Michael Foster, a case manager." But remember the standard form that can save you headaches: [i]never used to.[/i] It avoids the grammatical problem of did + [past tense] it keeps [i]used[/i]. And it doesn't reek of dialect.
On the gut level, I'm not entirely convinced -- but if that's how you say it ...

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I think this particular, awkward phrase has become fuzzy because of the blending of the "d" and "t" sounds in speech.

I agree, "didn't use to" is correct, but unfortunately "didn't used to" sounds almost identical when spoken.

Hence the confusion (in some quarters apparently, but not on A2K Laughing

)

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McTag wrote:

I think this particular, awkward phrase has become fuzzy because of the blending of the "d" and "t" sounds in speech.

On the other hand, Garner does have a point when he observes that the analogy between "use" and "have" does not work for "used to" vs. "had to", because the "used" is not declined. Consider the present tense for a counterexample: You wouldn't say "drivers these days use to speed", but the "have" analogy sounds perfectly natural: "drivers these days have to slow down."

It's a more interesting case than I initially thought.

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Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

what a load of old bollocksinger

Steve,

You shouldn't jump to such quick conclusions. You've obviously misread or misunderstood or both. Smile

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McTag wrote:

Steve (as 41oo) wrote:
what a load of old bollocksinger

I'm all for robust debate. What I think Steve is getting at here, is the notion that just becaus a lot, or most, people adopt a certain usage does no automatically make it correct. It makes it preferable, ipso facto, in their eyes. It may provide a useful shortcut. It may be appropriate to the particular register they wish to pitch to. But that's all.
Being appropriate, or trendy, in one register does not make it correct in all.

I appreciate your kind attempts to smooth things, McTag but don't worry about Steve's attitude or language. I appreciate, and sometimes use meself, frank and forward comments.

You may not have given enough thought to Prof Bollinger's comment. His was not a comment that addressed the trendy or the new - though that doesn't make such collocations incorrect either [another issue for another time]. He said, in the "broad sense".

What the naysayers are then left with are the same old tired prescriptions that they memorized in school and, having not thought things through, take to be the truth. This thread is full of them. Old wives tales that stick in people's brain like that stuff sticks to the proverbial blanket.

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Thomas wrote:

McTag wrote:
I think this particular, awkward phrase has become fuzzy because of the blending of the "d" and "t" sounds in speech.

On the other hand, Garner does have a point when he observes that the analogy between "use" and "have" does not work for "used to" vs. "had to", because the "used" is not declined. Consider the present tense for a counterexample: You wouldn't say "drivers these days use to speed", but the "have" analogy sounds perfectly natural: "drivers these days have to slow down."

It's a more interesting case than I initially thought.

I agree, Thomas, it is. Let me suggest that analogies with other verbs might not be helpful. What we have here is a stand alone idiom. I suggest, it can't be compared because it has no present tense form to compare to.

One VERY important thing to remember; grammar rules describe what already is and has & had been long before the "rules" have ever been considered.

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What are your pet peeves re English usage?

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