# EN: Did you used/use to



## Clochette13

Quelle est la question correcte à cette réponse (c'est un exemple bateau): I *used to *travel a lot when I was young.

Did you *used* to travel? 
OR 
Did you *use *to travel?

Merci!


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## florence a

Did you use, comment pour n'importe quel verbe: Did you know, did you understand, etc.


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## Morganlove

Second form, you can't use "ed", you always use the present form after did....


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## Transfer_02

Q: Did you use to travel to work by bus?
A: Yes, I used to, but now I have a car.


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## snarkhunter

Bonjour,

Ce qui est vrai pour "did" l'est en fait pour tous les verbes _auxiliaires ou modaux_ : leur utilisation avec un autre verbe implique la forme d'un _infinitif (sans "to")_ pour ce dernier.


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## broglet

Clochette13 said:


> Did you *used* to travel?
> OR
> Did you *use *to travel?


Ni l'un ni l'autre ne sont corrects, bien qu'on les entende.
La bonne solution est de dire 'Used you to travel ...' ou meilleur 'Did you travel ... '


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## florence a

Used you?.... That sounds really strange!
[…]


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## broglet

[…] Si tu n'aimes pas tellement 'used you to' (ni moi non plus) tu peux toujours utiliser 'Did you ... '


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## Transfer_02

florence a said:


> Used you?.... That sounds really strange!



I would never say Used you...?  It is not idiomatic English.


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## Clochette13

Merci beaucoup à tous pour vos réponses si rapides!  
Et en particulier à *broglet*!


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Maybe, Transfer, but it's perfectly grammatical English, I'm afraid.

GS


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## Maître Capello

broglet said:


> Ni l'un ni l'autre ne sont corrects, bien qu'on les entende.


I beg your pardon, but the latter (_Did you use to travel?_) seems correct to me. Why are you saying that it is also incorrect? 



> La bonne solution est de dire […] 'Did you travel ... '


Well, it doesn't mean exactly the same thing because you dropped the idea of habit (_use to_).


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## Transfer_02

broglet said:


> Ni l'un ni l'autre ne sont corrects, bien qu'on les entende.



I disagree.  "Did you use to travel?" is OK.  So is, "Did you use to smoke?"  "Did you use to live in France?" etc
They are idiomatic and widely used.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

The notion of habit in the past is expressed by the "block" _used to_ /ju:stə/ which, in a way similar to modal auxiliaries, takes a "not" after the first element, is moved to the front of the sentence in interrogatives, etc.
Nothing to do with the verb _(to) use_. 

I used two dictionaries /iu:zd tu:/
I used to translate a lot /ju:stə/

GS
PS The notion of habit in the present is expressed not by the verb _use_ nor by the "block" _use to_, but by other means


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## Maître Capello

According to this BBC page, it seems like _Did you us*ed* to_ is also correct! 


> For questions and negative forms, two forms of the verb are used - either the normal infinitive pattern after *did *(more common), or the past form* used *(less common):
> 
> _When you were a kid, did you *use* to think the sun revolved around the earth?_
> _When you were a kid, did you *used* to think the sun revolved around the earth?_
> _I didn't *use* to take such a large dress size, but now I do._
> _I didn't *used* to take such a large dress size, but now I do._
> In a more formal style, questions and negatives are possible without *do*, following the pattern of a modal auxiliary verb, although these forms are less often used:
> 
> _*I used not to like* contemporary dance, but now I do._
> _*Used you to play* the organ in church before you became a monk?_


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## Transfer_02

Giorgio Spizzi said:


> The notion of habit in the past is expressed by the "block" _used to_ /ju:stə/ which, in a way similar to modal auxiliaries, takes a "not" after the first element, is moved to the front of the sentence in interrogatives, etc.
> Nothing to do with the verb _(to) use_.
> 
> I used two dictionaries /iu:zd/
> I used to translate a lot



You are missing the point.  Maître Capello was referring to the suggestion "Did you travel a lot?" which loses the notion of habit.  It could be referring to a particular period of time (eg Did you travel much while you were in Spain?)  whereas "Did you use to travel?"  would refer to past habits and routines.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Maître Capello said:


> According to this BBC page, it seems like _Did you us*ed* to_ is also correct!


A sort of confirmation that _used to_ is in fact a "block" and is felt by the native speakers as a sort of "two-word" verb.

GS


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## Maître Capello

See also the following discussions on other forums:
Did she <use to, used to> swim? - English Only
did you use to - English Only
He did <use to, used to> ... - English Only
Did you used to go there? - Spanish-English (but the whole discussion is in English)

See also: did used to


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## broglet

Hi Maître Capello.  Sadly the BBC is no longer a reliable user (still less teacher) of English.  

Of course there are no hard and fast rules as English is a constantly evolving language and once a solecism falls into common use who is to say it is wrong? So let me rephrase what I said earlier:

Although 'Did you use to' is often heard on the streets of England it is widely regarded as incorrect.  In my opinion it is best avoided, especially in written English.  The grammatically correct form is 'Used you to ... ' but there are often better ways of expressing it and in answer to Clochette's original question my preference would be for: 'Did you travel a lot when you were young?' (To my ear the interpolation of 'use to' would add nothing to this question apart from ugliness and grammatical dubiety)


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## Transfer_02

"widely regarded as incorrect".  How widely? In spoken English, the question, "Used you to travel?" would provoke derision....   IMO
And I guess it is fairly unlikely to be used in written English in the interrogative form, unless between quotation marks.

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English does not regard it as incorrect:
_Did you use to go to church regularly?_


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## broglet

Transfer_02 said:


> "widely regarded as incorrect".  How widely? In spoken English, the question, "Used you to travel?" would provoke derision....   IMO


Clearly not as widely as Finland. As I said, 'Used you to' is often neither necessary nor ideal, but the idea of its 'provoking derision' is, with respect, ridiculous.


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## Maître Capello

broglet said:


> […] my preference would be for: 'Did you travel a lot when you were young?' (To my ear the interpolation of 'use to' would add nothing to this question apart from ugliness and grammatical dubiety)


I agree that in that specific example, “use to” is unnecessary and your suggestion is probably more natural. However, that isn't always the case, e.g.:

_Did you use to go to school by bus?_ → This is definitely a question about a habit regardless of context.
_Did you go to school by bus?_ → Without further context this appears to be a question about a one-time event.


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## broglet

Si c'est une question d'habitude, en mon avis il serait meilleur et plus clair de demander 'Did you usually go to school by bus?'


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## sclubusher

Bonjour à tous,

Bien apparemment, d'après les liens que Maître Capello à donné et mes recherches sur Google, tout le monde n'est pas 100% d'accord, il y en à qui préféreront dire :
Did you used to.... (Moins courant d'après la BBC) 

d'autres : Did you use to... (plus courant)

et pour finir Used to... (bien que ça ne soit pas treès recommandé d'après ce que j'ai vu)

Mais ses trois façons peuvent se dire et sont grammaticalement correct. (d'après ce que j'ai lu)
Est-ce que ça dépends des régions d'Angleterre ou des classes sociales ?


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## broglet

Je ne pense pas que ça dépend des régions ou des classes sociales. C'est une question de bonne grammaire ('did you used to' ne l'est pas) et de goût


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## lucas-sp

broglet said:


> Although 'Did you use to' is often heard on the streets of England it is widely regarded as incorrect.  In my opinion it is best avoided, especially in written English.  The grammatically correct form is 'Used you to ... '





broglet said:


> 'Used you to' is often neither necessary nor ideal, but the idea of its 'provoking derision' is, with respect, ridiculous.


Please, French speakers, disregard these two opinions. "Did you use to" will *never* be regarded as incorrect in everyday speech and everyday written English. "Used you to" will *always* be regarded as incorrect - in everyday spoken/written English _as well as _written English.

I hate it when someone comes out with one of these bizarre opinions, because now this happens:





> Bien apparemment, d'après les liens que Maître Capello à donné et mes recherches sur Google, tout le monde n'est pas 100% d'accord, il y en à qui préféreront dire :
> Did you used to.... (Moins courant d'après la BBC)
> 
> d'autres : Did you use to... (plus courant)
> 
> et pour finir Used to... (bien que ça ne soit pas treès recommandé d'après ce que j'ai vu)
> 
> Mais *ses trois façons peuvent se dire et sont grammaticalement correct*. (d'après ce que j'ai lu)


Just usage-wise, the last one is absolutely archaic and won't pass easily in everyday conversation. The "d" sound in "use(d) to" is not normally pronounced; the "use(d) to" sounds like one word for the most part. This is why most English speakers don't even know whether they say "Did she use to" or "Did she used to": we make the same sound for "use(d) to" in both cases.

Here's a graph demonstrating the precipitous drop in "used one to": http://books.google.com/ngrams/grap...start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

The grammar book I consulted advised that interrogative uses of "used to" are so uncommon that "there's no need to dwell on them."


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Right, why worry about the correct use of language when a certain expression is rarely pronounced. Or _Vive le pragmatisme americain!

GS_


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## broglet

lucas-sp said:


> Please, French speakers, disregard these two opinions ... I hate it when someone comes out with one of these bizarre opinions


There is no need to be offensive, lucas-sp.  By the way, statistics of the kind that you produced do not prove very much - witness this graph showing the amazing increase in 'used he to': http://books.google.com/ngrams/grap...start=1986&year_end=1997&corpus=6&smoothing=3


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## sclubusher

Right, so I keep my first  thinking which is "Did you use to"


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## Maître Capello

Although statistics can be twisted to yield more or less any result—by the way, the choice of the pronoun (_you, he, she, _or _they_) and the capitalization (_did_ vs. _Did_, etc.) yield quite different patterns—, I find it interesting to note the following trends:

_*did you use to*_ and _*used you to*_ used to be (no pun intended) equally common.
_*did you used to*_ was hardly used before the 1920's.
Since then, _*did you used to*_ has become more and more common, while _*used you to*_ has lost popularity (especially relative to _*did you use to*_).
Overall, all three phrases are rather uncommon (the relative frequency is very small).


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## The Broken Rib Inn

Pour ma part, j'ai toujours appris qu'il fallait écrire "Did you *used* to...?", bien que les anglophones trouvent ça étrange d'avoir deux prétérits pour former une question - et c'est pour cela qu'on peut trouver "Did you *use* to...?", qui semblerait plus logique à première vue.

Quant à "Used you to...?", je dois dire que ça me paraît assez étrange d'employer "used to" comme un modal ou un semi-modal.


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## lucas-sp

broglet said:


> There is no need to be offensive, lucas-sp.  By the way, statistics of the kind that you produced do not prove very much - witness this graph showing the amazing increase in 'used he to': http://books.google.com/ngrams/grap...start=1986&year_end=1997&corpus=6&smoothing=3


Dear broglet, there's no need to concoct ridiculous statistics to disprove a self-evident historical trend. "Used he to?" is just as archaic and inadvisable in contemporary English as "Used she to?"

For those who would like to compare his graph to a more representative one, hey hey! I found one: http://books.google.com/ngrams/grap...start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=6&smoothing=3

Still huge fall from usage in the late half of the 20th century. It does seem like "used one to?" hung out in BE for a lot longer than it did in AE. But the numbers in question here are so small that they prove a much greater point: we don't make questions out of "used to" very often. Vive le pragmatisme pragmatique?


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## broglet

Maître Capello said:


> Overall, all three phrases are rather uncommon (the relative frequency is very small).


They are probably uncommon in written English as there's usually a better way of expressing oneself, avoiding what is something of a grammatical minefield. Spoken English is another matter and there are no statistics on what is heard in the street.


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## Transfer_02

lucas-sp said:


> It does seem like "used one to?" hung out in BE for a lot longer than it did in AE. But the numbers in question here are so small that they prove a much greater point: we don't make questions out of "used to" very often. Vive le pragmatisme pragmatique?



Well, (I'm 50-something, British and) I don't think I even remember my parents using, "Used you to live in Reading?"   
Contrary to what broglet suggests, I think it could well be a class thing eg "Used one to attend Eton?" 

The negative question structure is probably used more frequently:  "Didn't you use to be a member of the golf club?", "Didn't you use to work for IBM?"  Maybe there is something in the corpus to support that...


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## broglet

The Broken Rib Inn said:


> Pour ma part, j'ai toujours appris qu'il fallait écrire "Did you *used* to...?", bien que les anglophones trouvent ça étrange d'avoir deux prétérits pour former une question - et c'est pour cela qu'on peut trouver "Did you *use* to...?", qui semblerait plus logique à première vue.
> 
> Quant à "Used you to...?", je dois dire que ça me paraît assez étrange d'employer "used to" comme un modal ou un semi-modal.


The 'used' in 'Did you used to ...' is not really a preterite but part of the auxiliary 'used to' which together with a subsequent infinitive (eg 'go') creates the imperfect (or past continuous) tense.  Grammatically 'Did you used to go' seems as odd to me as 'Did you were going' (which is indisputably wrong).

It seems to me that the 'use to' in 'Did you use to ... ' is not a verb at all but a special-purpose auxiliary, only ever used in the construction 'Did you use to' for the sole purpose of avoiding the _appearance_ of following 'Did you' with an imperfect.  But it doesn't change the fact that 'Did you use to go' is grammatically indistinguishable from 'Did you used to go'.


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## sclubusher

D'après ce que je vois sur tout les sites pour apprendre l'Anglais, ils disent incontestablement qu'il faut dire "Did you use to..."
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-m_used-to-do.htm
used to do | EnglishClub

*Used or use?
*


*

when there is did in the sentence, we say use to (without d)

when there is no did in the sentence, we say used to (with d)
*
Mais ensuite, lorsque j'ai regardé sur le dictionnaire reverso, il y a une phrase comme :_ I didn't used to worry so much_

Je pense que c'est une question de dialecte de chacun et qu'il est bien possible et surtout juste de dire  et Did + used to et Did + use to.
Je pense qu'à l'écrit les deux sont acceptable, n'est-ce pas ?


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hi, Brog.

I'd say rather:

_But it doesn't change the fact that 'Did you use to go' is indistinguishable from 'Did you used to go' from the standpoint of auditory phonetics.

_GS

Hullo, all.

To sum up, I'd say:

In negatives: He didn't use to smoke & He didn't used /ju:st/ to smoke _are both grammatically correct_.
In interrogatives: Used he to smoke (_especially British_) & Did he use(d) do smoke _are both grammatically correct, the latter being preferred in both the US and in GB.

_


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## KHS

"Used you to ... " is not a form that you hear or read in American English. In the Corpus of Contemporary American English (450 million words), there was not a single example of "Used you to..." as a question form (some examples of unrelated "he used you to do X")

While in theory "Did you used to..." may not be correct, the fact that it has been extremely widely used for so long has led to its acceptance as a correct form. This acceptance is similar to that of "who" being used as an an object pronoun. Whatever grammar books once said, usage has trumped the "rule" (which is, after all, based on patterns of usage and/or imposition of Latin grammar along with some other sources). 

In the Corpus of Contemporary American English, you find 
Did you used to ... 32 exemplars
Did you use to ... 12 exemplars

So, actually, neither is used very often in somewhat more formal contexts (both original written texts and transcripts of spoken formats).

http://corpus.byu.edu/coca

EDIT - I did my homework a bit better.  Of the 12 exemplars that used "Did you use to," only 2 were asking about past habit.  (Others were sentences that asked things like, "What did you use to do that?")  Unless I missed something, all 32 of the "Did you used to..." questions were about past habit.


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## Transfer_02

What about "Didn't you used to..." ?

Just curious


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## KHS

In COCA, "didn't you used to ..." = 24 instances, all about past state or habit  (quite a few, "didn't you used to be...")


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## broglet

KHS said:


> So, actually, neither is used very often in somewhat more formal contexts (both original written texts and transcripts of spoken formats)


Hi KHS - what do you deduce from this?


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## KHS

I would say that "used to" in any of its question forms is very informal and generally not used, and either (a) speakers find another way to ask the question, or perhaps (b) questions about past habit (no longer true today) are simply not so common in life (or a bit of both). 

The negative question form indicates that you *expect* 'yes' as an answer. 

Broglet, I don't know if this is the type of comment you were looking for.


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## broglet

Hi KHS - I completely agree with what you say based on my own (UK) experience but I was wondering what you deduced from the COCA figures


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## KHS

COCA relies on somewhat more formal (more intellectual TV talk shows or documentaries; articles from journals that are generally respected for their style) sources. So, given their paucity in COCA, I made the deduction that, if and when they are used, USED TO questions are unusual in *somewhat* more formal contexts.

They may also be infrequent in very informal conversations, but I don't have any data for that.

I'm too tired at the moment to think too far on this at the moment, but the order of frequency is interesting:

Did you used to (32)
Didn't you used to (24)
Did you use to (2)
Used you to (zero)


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## sclubusher

Giorgio Spizzi said:


> To sum up, I'd say:
> 
> In negatives: He didn't use to smoke & He didn't used /ju:st/ to smoke _are both grammatically correct_.
> In interrogatives: Used he to smoke (_especially British_) & Did he use(d) do smoke _are both grammatically correct, the latter being preferred in both the US and in GB._


D'accord, il est donc possible est *juste* d'écrire  Did you use to ou bien did you used to ?
Vous confirmez ( à l'uninamité) ?


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## KHS

Oui...mais, à vrai dire, j'éviterais de les écrire - sauf si c'est un contexte très informel.


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## ThousandsHardships

As a native English speaker, I see and use the term as "used to" in every circumstance. I have never seen "used you." It does not seem like correct English to me.


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## sclubusher

KHS said:


> Oui...mais, à vrai dire, j'éviterais de les écrire - sauf si c'est un contexte très informel.



Qu'écririez-vous à la place ?


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## The Broken Rib Inn

Pour ma part, c'est "used to" dans tous les cas, même si je sais qu'on peut mettre "use to" s'il y a déjà "did".


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## KHS

sclubusher said:


> Qu'écririez-vous à la place ?



Cela dépend du contexte; si vous pouvez me donner le contexte...


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## sclubusher

KHS said:


> Cela dépend du contexte; si vous pouvez me donner le contexte...



Merci KHS, mais je n'ai pas de contexte particulier. Je cherchais simplement à savoir lesquel des "Used to" on pouvait utiliser (et surtout juste). ^^
Mais si vous avez un contexte, je serais curieux de voir ce qu'on peut écrire à la place de "used to"


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## KHS

Justement, je n'ai pas de contexte particulier parce que d'habitude je ne l'utiliserais pas en langue écrite.


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## bryanilee

"... He didn't used /ju:st/ to smoke _are both grammatically correct."

_Are you sure?  I wouldn't think "did" could ever be used with a past tense.
"did go", but never "did went"
"did eat", but never "did ate"
"did walk", but never "did walked"
etc.

For me (US speaker), I usually try to avoid "did" and "use to" together.  It may be grammatically correct in some form, but just sounds awkward to me.  I would usually covert it to something like, "Did you often go...?" or "Did you go regularly...?"

(Pardon, je ne peux pas parler francais bien)!


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, Bry, and welcome to the Forum.
You're perfectly right, of course, but the "used" inside "used to" is a very special case. In the development of the English language, "used to" has become a sort of individed unit, or an icon if you prefer, specialized in the representation of HABIT. The "use" in it has lost all meanings connected with the verb "to use", ie "employ", etc.
Best.
GS


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## broglet

hi bry and welcome

I entirely agree with you - how refreshing to find linguistic accord across the pond!  

Whether or not something is grammatically correct is, I suppose, ultimately a question of what kind of grammatical components you regard it as containing, and things may not always be as they seem.  The problem with employing 'did' with 'use(d) to' is, as you rightly point out, that in no other circumstance is 'did' followed by a past tense verb (eg 'use(d) to go') but only ever with an infinitive (eg 'go').  And if we were to consider 'Did you used to go?' as grammatically correct then _ipso facto_ we would have to regard the reply 'Yes, I did used to go' as grammatically correct too.

Anyway, as you so rightly say bry, there are usually more euphonious and less grammatically controversial alternatives - I would add 'Did you usually ... ' ,'Did you tend to ...' and 'Did you habitually ...' to your suggestions.

Girorgio Spizzi is of course quite right that the 'use' in 'used to' has nothing to do with 'employ' but it is simply a way of forming the past continuous tense (probably etymologically linked with 'usually')


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## sclubusher

On pourrait aussi dire pour éviter de dire "Did + Use(d) to" :

- Did you have a habbit of...
- Were you in the habbit of...

C'est juste ?


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## Keith Bradford

I've read through this discussion with some puzzled amusement.  I simply can't understand the assertion that _"The grammatically correct form is 'Used you to ... '"_  Is the verb *to use *so completely different from every other verb in English?  Do we ever say "Wanted you to go...?"  "Tried he to sing...?" 

Likewise, we don't say "Did you wanted to..."  Did you liked to..." so "Did you used to..." is a solecism.  It's wrong.

The only reason why "Did you used to ...?" has even gained the slightest foothold is because it's essentially a spoken locution, and is indistinguishable in speech from the correct form "Did you use to...?"  For this reason, examples from talk shows are unreliable, as they aren't written by the people who spoke them.  You might as well argue that "freind" is acceptable.  No learner of English should copy from mis-spelt forms.


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## broglet

Hi Keith

You seem to think that the verb in question here is 'to use', which it isn't (see Giorgio Spizzi's post #54 and my #55).


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