Day 3


Did you know that the following sentence is grammatically wrong?

I didn't used to do this


Yes, the correct form is:

I didn't use to do this


But these are grammatically correct:

I never used to do this

I used to not do this

I used not to do this


Why? Because the word "used" is actually the Past-Simple form of the auxiliary verb "use" (unrelated to the verb "to use"), and when it is modified by another auxiliary verb that is in the negative - such as "didn't" or "couldn't", it reverts to it's base form "use".

However, when "used" is modified by an adverbial of time like "never" or "three years ago", it doesn't switch to it's base form.

Now, I reckon I know how to speak English, and I've read quite a lot of grammar books - both the prescriptive and descriptive kinds - and I have never come across this rule before today. How many professional speakers or writers do you think know it? For that matter, how many grammarians or language teachers know it?

Oh, and there's one small extra detail. Unless you're speaking very precisely, the /d/ in "used" isn't pronounced anyway! So whether you say "use" or "used" makes no difference!

Huh!

[Update: I checked in some grammar books, and I can confirm that (1) these rules do exist as I describe them, (b) I'm expected to teach them at some point, and (3) they're so obscure and routinely broken that I'm still inclined not to bother.]

Apart from that, I had the slightly smug experience today of watching my fellow trainees make mistakes while teaching learners, without having to demonstrate my own incompetence in return.

That happens tomorrow.

There was also more on how to write a lesson plan, and maybe I'll introduce you to that dubious pleasure tomorrow. In the meantime, I've got to write one of the damn things.

1 comment:

  1. The main problem with grammar rules, mainly in languages that have gone through long periods of intensive change (like English or almost all Romanic languages), is that they're useful indeed from the perspective of, say, the scholar or the intellectual. But from the perspective of the «daily» teacher, they can easily turn into traps: the very instant you come up with one of them, you'll have to be ready to deal with «all» the exceptions to it. And that's seldom the case... Not to mention the poor learner's perspective...
    In other languages, however, those same rules prove to be very useful indeed. German or Esperanto, for instance.

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