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From: Chris Croughton <chris@keristor.net>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: used to
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 08:32:27 +0100
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On Tue, 5 Jul 2005 22:42:37 +0100, Mike Lyle
<mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Chris Croughton wrote:
> [...]
>> I might say (and have certainly heard) "he used not to live there",
>> but it's not very common ("he used to not live there" being a lot
> more
>> common).
>
> Interesting example of the common American preference for the "split
> infinitive":
Er, I'm a Brit, but I generally don't care much either way about split
infinitives. Dangling prepositions, on the other hand...
> Brits who don't know or care about the difference would
> almost always say "used not to live" -- though I'm sure "didn't use
> to live" would be the usual spoken form. "To not [do]" generally
> appears in BrE only for special emphasis.
I can't help feeling that there's a semantic difference, but I can't put
my finger on it. Yes, "he used to not live there" does sound more
emphatic, parsed as "he (used to) (not live there) [but does now]",
rather than "he (used) (not (to live there)) [and might not now]".
I'm not sure whether I'd say "he didn't use(d) to live there", but I
agree it is said that way. I regard it as 'common' and not "proper
English", and would definitely reject it in narrative writing.
Chris C
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