AE speakers who use "did used to"...

beneficii   Sun Aug 05, 2007 3:15 am GMT
M56,

<<You seem a bit obsessed with this prescriptive versus descriptive thing. Can you describe those two labels for us? What do you mean when you use the words prescritive and descriptive?>>

Prescriptive: Saying how a language _should_ be.
Descriptive: Saying how a language _is_.
furrykef   Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:49 am GMT
<<<< I never heard it pronounced with two t's. >>>>

<< You're probably another one of those [t]-haters, who talk about going on the "innernet", shopping "cenners" etc. >>

Well, I can't speak for that particular poster, but I *always* pronounce it "use to" in both tenses. I do say the first 't' in "internet" and the 't' in "center", but not all the time.

- Kef
Travis   Sun Aug 05, 2007 6:34 am GMT
For me at least, "internet" and "innernet", and "center" and "cenner" are not homophones, even though I do not normally pronounce any [t]s in "internet" or "center". This is because I still distinguish /n/ and /nt/ intervocalically, due to having a long vowel before /n/ and a short vowel before /nt/ as well as due to shifting /nt/ to [4~] rather than to [n]. I have:

"internet" ["I~4~R~=:nE?]
"innernet" ["I~:nR~:nE?]
"center" ["sE~4~R=:]
"cenner" ["sE~:nR=:]
I hate spam   Sun Aug 05, 2007 8:58 am GMT
<Prescriptive: Saying how a language _should_ be.
Descriptive: Saying how a language _is_.>

Well, it's basic, but we can work with it. So, can you now point out those members who you think behave prescriptively?
Divvy   Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:31 am GMT
'In the negative form the word "didn't" indicates that the sentence is negative so "used to" changes to its basic form "use to". Similarly, in the question form the word "Did" indicates that the sentence is a question.

I didn't use to walk to school.
Did you use to walk to school?'


So "used to" has a basic form, does it? What is meant by basic form?
M56   Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:38 am GMT
I see it in the same way as this chap and cannot for the life of me see why anyone would see it another way - especially teachers who want to teach the systematic nature of English usage.

"use pronounced /ju:s/, i.e. with an unvoiced final consonant, is an auxiliary verb which, not being a modal verb, takes the infinitive with to. Thus I see it as analogous to want. I used to play football has the same structure as I wanted to play football. This being the case, it follows that the negative form must be I didn't use to play football and also that the question form must be Did you use to play football?"

http://lavengro.typepad.com/peter_harvey_linguist/2007/07/using-used-to.html
Pos   Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:54 am GMT
This part is even more relevant, IMHO, M56:

"I suspect that we are dealing with that old and curious phenomenon, hypercorrection. The clearly incorrect form *I didn't used to play football is sometimes found in print. In speech this cannot be distinguished from I didn't use to play football and people who wish to make it quite clear that they are shunning a solecism can only do so by avoiding the homophony completely and using an alternative form."

http://lavengro.typepad.com/peter_harvey_linguist/2007/07/using-used-to.html

In reality, those who try to distinguish the double "t" sound in "used to" are guilty of hypercorrection. Those who avoid homophony seem afraid of contextualising. They take things in isolation and claim there will be confusion unless one rids the world of homophony. All nonsense, to those of us who worship at the feet of Context.

;-)))
furrykef   Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:08 am GMT
Pos, you seem to act as if we have consciously declared a war on homonyms, when the simple matter is that these issues are generally more of a matter of what looks or sounds better than fear of homophony or homography.

- Kef
Milton   Sun Aug 05, 2007 2:15 pm GMT
Longman Pronunciation Dictionary says the first T in /ju:st t@/ can be silent in British English too: /ju:st@/
Pos   Sun Aug 05, 2007 5:26 pm GMT
<Pos, you seem to act as if we have consciously declared a war on homonyms, when the simple matter is that these issues are generally more of a matter of what looks or sounds better than fear of homophony or homography. >

Your "choices" are not really your own though, are they, Kef? You went to school, were told what to say, listened to other speakers in your country/community and imitated those people, right? So, when you say that you choose to use "fit" because it sounds better, there's no real choice that has been made, now is there? And it seems to me that much of the choices you speak of are inconsistent, as Divvy, I think, has shown. Such inconsistency is bad for language teaching and bad for learners. We need systematic treatment of a language to be able to begin using it well. I have a feeling that the choice of "fit" as a past tense of "fit" is not so accidental as you make out and that even you may be surprised at what "inventions" AE speakers may next come up with.
Liz   Sun Aug 05, 2007 5:39 pm GMT
<<"use to" is pronounced [jus tu] with one [t] sound and "used to" is pronounced [just tu] with two [t] sounds. Pronouncing "used to" like "use to" is sloppy. For some reason, a lot of you guys appear to be [t]-haters.>>

Pete, with all due respect, no. I don't know much about American dialects but even in RP (and I reckon that's the variety you speak if you are Pete from Peru - are you?), "used to" is normally pronounced with only one "t". Well, feel free to pronounce both "t"-s if you want to sound very very ultra mega extra meticulous 50s conservative RP in extremis. But people don't usually pronounce it that way even in formal, careful, not "sloppy" (as you put it) speech.
Pos   Sun Aug 05, 2007 6:03 pm GMT
<Well, feel free to pronounce both "t"-s if you want to sound very very ultra mega extra meticulous 50s conservative RP in extremis. But people don't usually pronounce it that way even in formal, careful, not "sloppy" (as you put it) speech. >

I agree. As said above, I think it's a case of hypercorrection when speakers try to pronounce two "t-sounds". One speaker here claims that to use two "t-sounds" is a case of careful English. Nonsense, I say.
furrykef   Sun Aug 05, 2007 7:02 pm GMT
<< Your "choices" are not really your own though, are they, Kef? You went to school, were told what to say, listened to other speakers in your country/community and imitated those people, right? So, when you say that you choose to use "fit" because it sounds better, there's no real choice that has been made, now is there? >>

That's correct.

<< And it seems to me that much of the choices you speak of are inconsistent, as Divvy, I think, has shown. Such inconsistency is bad for language teaching and bad for learners. We need systematic treatment of a language to be able to begin using it well. >>

Well, I don't need silly analogies to know that it's inconsistent.

But what can we do about it? For the most part, language change is unstoppable. Sure, there are some exceptions, but people still split infinitives, end sentences with prepositions, and say "It's me" instead of "It is I", all without a second thought, even though these are among the most well-known grammatical "errors" (although all of them are arguably arbitrary). It's impossible to fight against common constructions, and it would be even more fruitless to try to change "fit" back to "fitted" than it would be to enforce any of those three grammar rules.

- Kef
Divvy   Sun Aug 05, 2007 10:22 pm GMT
<Well, I don't need silly analogies to know that it's inconsistent.>

Very polite, I'm sure.

<It's impossible to fight against common constructions, and it would be even more fruitless to try to change "fit" back to "fitted" than it would be to enforce any of those three grammar rules. >


You say all that, but then you say things such "match", as past tense, will never become the norm. How do you know?
furrykef   Mon Aug 06, 2007 8:26 am GMT
<< Very polite, I'm sure. >>

I'm just saying that if the point of asking these questions is to point out how inconsistent English can be, that isn't necessary, because everybody knows that.

<< You say all that, but then you say things such "match", as past tense, will never become the norm. How do you know? >>

Because you're using an argument based on semantics when semantics has little to do with it. You might as well argue that verbs that are similar in meaning to "catch" should all conjugate the same way that "catch" does. The only reason that "fit" changes its conjugation based on its meaning is that it has evolved into two separate (though related) verbs, not that there is something special about matching that means the conjugation has to follow a particular form. Parallels in irregularity are based on morphology and phonetics, not semantics.

I don't think that necessarily implies that "match" will become "maught", as you suggested in the other thread, though. You might as well argue that the past tense of "try" will become "trought" (based on buy/bought). The fact that two verbs differ only by the initial sound isn't enough to make it likely that they'll share conjugation patterns.

Part of the reason that I don't think "match" will develop into "maught" is because native speakers will have no idea what "maught" means. If a child says something like "The shirt fit me", an adult will easily understand. But if the same child says "I maught them" instead of "I matched them", the adult would not understand -- at least, not without some thought or some clarification. But with "dive" and "dove", which doesn't even have a clear model for its irregularity, if a child says "I dove into the water", it's clear what verb the child is trying to use. The same applies when children are speaking to other children -- and children are much less likely to correct each other's mistakes, so such usages may get reinforced that way...

- Kef