posted
Does anyone know where the phrase "used to" came from? I was looking at it, and it occurred to me that it doesn't seem to have any connection to the verb "to use". I mean "used to" as in "getting used to" makes some sense, but "I used to like that show" doesn't. At least not that I can see.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I think it's short for "used to do" but that doesn't make any sense either. It's almost operating like a helping verb like can, would, and have.
posted
I think it's kind of an idiom...doesn't really make any sense unless you define the entire phrase. Earliest recorded use was about swearing. Great sentence, actually:
quote: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest text using "used to" in the context you ask about is Robert Mannyngs "Handlyng Synne 1303." The quote cited is "For ryche men vse comunly Sweryn grete othys grysly." Translated: "For rich men used to commonly swear great, grisley oaths."
posted
"What are we supposed to use? Harsh language?" -- Aliens
That's funny. You can use swearing. Swearing = to swear. You use to swear. I think it started out as "use" + gerund and got generalized to "use" + infinitive, and then the infinitive got split.
And if use + to swear = swear, used + to swear = swore? Ew, it's almost as bad as "needs painted".
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
There are or were senses of "use" meaning things like "to do a thing customarily" and "to be in the custom of." You start off with a construction like scifibum's example of "Rich men use to swear," meaning "Rich men are in the habit of swearing." If you put it in the past tense, it means that they were in the habit of swearing (but arent anymore). Then "used" starts to become grammaticalized and lose its lexical definition in this construction. That is, it stops to literally mean "use" and starts to be just a sort of quasi-helping verb.
Just as a nitpick: I'm pretty sure that the correct translation of that quote is not "Rich men used to commonly swear great, grisley oaths," but rather "Rich men use to commonly swear great, grisley oaths." We don't use use in the present tense in this manner anymore.
pooka: Judging from the citations in the OED, it looks like it's always been use(d) + infinitive. But it's worth noting that we now use gerunds in places where the language used to use infinitives
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I have used and have heard sentences like I used to smoke. I used to train tigers for the circus. I used to be blonde, now I am a redhead. I used to have a grey cat.
Maybe this usage is from the 40s and 50s.
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OOPs, this is jaysedai6 and Iam using my daughters computer. Pay little or no notice of previous post.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
The infinitive did not get split, pooka, a verb always follows "used to." It's like the phrase "have to." What does possession have to do with obligation? "I have an obligation to go to the store" has been shortened to "I have to go to the store." But my study of Spanish indicates a different origin for the two. "Have to" has a direct translation, whereas "used to" falls under a the imperfect preterite or co-preterite form. I don't know if any of that helps, but I figured it was relevant.
Posts: 1286 | Registered: Dec 2005
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"Have to" is not short for "have an obligation to." It has always simply been "have" plus an infinitive verb. A similar construction in Latin (infinitive + "have") led to the formation of the future tense in the Romance languages. In those languages it's simply a future tense without any extra connotations, but in English it came to mean something in the future that you're obligated to do.
And it's not the only "possession" verb that came to have a sense of obligation. "Ought" was originally the past tense of the verb "owe," but it came to be a modal verb expressing obligation. But then speakers formed the new past tense form "owed" to replace it.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Hmmm. A book I read by Charles Earle Funk said something to the effect of what I said, but either I badly misunderstood it or poorly explained it.
Or a little of both.
Or a lot of both. There are just so many options!
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