Re: Pronunciation of Saturday

On Thu, 03 May 2007 20:23:22 GMT,
mikeorang.page@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Mike Page) said:

On Wed, 02 May 2007 15:02:41 -0700, Bob Cunningham
<exw6sxq@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 02 May 2007 21:19:02 GMT,
mikeorang.page@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Mike Page) said:

On Tue, 01 May 2007 14:01:33 -0700, Bob Cunningham
<exw6sxq@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, 01 May 2007 12:01:01 -0700, Bob Cunningham
<exw6sxq@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

On Tue, 1 May 2007 11:48:44 -0700, "Skitt"
<skitt99@xxxxxxxxxxx> said:

Mike Barnes wrote:

Well, you didn't use[d] to. I think I see where you're coming from
now.

Google says:
"didn't use to": 120,000
"didn't used to": 271,000
So, about equal then.

The ignoramuses are winning, as usual.

I wonder if you'd get similar results with "didn't want to"
and "didn't wanted to".

....>
I always come back to the same realization: Lots of people
just don't understand the relevant meaning of the word
"use", so they don't know "didn't used to" is
ungrammatical..

Let me say again, though, that US usage guides are so far as
I know agreed that "didn't used to" is a grammatical error.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said about UK usage guides.

Where do you stand on 'irregardless'?

Why should I stand anywhere on it? It's not a word that
I've ever used, and I don't remember anyone else using it.

Do you think your question is relevant to what I was
discussing, the ungrammaticality of "didn't used to"? If
so, please explain how you think it is. If not, please
explain why you want to know where I in particular stand on
"irregardless".

'Irregardless' is, I understand, a fairly widespread American
usage. AHD seems to think so, but marks it as non-standard, and
Truly delights in it.

I've seen in a dictionary recently that "irregardless" is
sometimes used jocularly. If, as you say, Truly uses it, I
suspect she likes its jocular tone. I would expect her to
know better than to use it in serious formal prose.

Grammatically it is totally illogical,

"Totally" may be too strong a word. I can see where it
could be defended as an intensification, sorta like a double
negative. Note that "unloosen" seems to have unqualified
approval as a synonym of "loosen" by both UK and US
lexicographers. It's as illogical as "irregardless", but,
again, it may give some users a feeling of intensification.

but is regarded as valid by many non-prescriptivists.

I don't know what you mean exactly by "non-prescriptivists".
Someone who favors no restrictions at all on usage could be
called that, and what that someone considered valid would be
irrelevant to a discussion of proper English usage.

So far as I've seen, no American English usage guide calls
"didn't used to" valid, and some of those guides are clearly
non-prescriptive. And, as I implied earlier, UK guides,
like Burchfield's grossly misnamed _The New Fowler's Modern
English Usage_, mention "didn't used to" without commenting
on its ungrammaticality.

Burchfield cites examples with "didn't used to" and "didn't
use to" mixed without comment (page 815 under "use") except
to say that whichever way it's spelled, it's to be used
"only in very informal contexts".

'Didn't used to' is pretty much the same. I was brought up
with it and it is in my normal usage.

Are you sure? If you said it, I probably wouldn't know
whether you were saying "didn't use to", which is impeccably
grammatical in American English, or "didn't used to". Most
people would pronounce them the same way.

If you write "didn't used to", it might be better to call
that a spelling error rather than a grammatical error, again
because of the identical pronunciation with the proper
"didn't use to".

I don't know what part of the world you live in. If you're
not an American, you may not have "didn't <infinitive>" as a
normal construction in your dialect. For example, I think
some UK contributors to this newsgroup have said it's not
proper UK English. I could be misremembering, though.
.

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