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AIBU?

Why are people now saying ‘use to’ instead of ‘used to’?

96 replies

FaithHopeAndSkulduggery · 01/10/2018 23:48

And leaving out the ‘ed’ on lots of words.

‘Bake beans’. No it’s baked beans.

‘I use to like that show’ . No, it’s fucking ‘used to’.

Lots of other examples I can’t bring to mind right now.

I want to burn the screen when I see that.

Also, when people say ‘long story short’ in conversation instead of ‘to cut a long story short’.

Aibu to hate this?

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Mightybanhammer · 03/10/2018 15:46

I give you:
I text her yesterday
I

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Meltedicicle · 03/10/2018 09:21

I have a friend who says and writes ‘are’ instead of ‘our’. Makes me cringe. I also have another friend who consistently uses proverbs and phrases incorrectly like ‘cut her nose off to despite her face’. She also does the he/his thing. But when texting I would say for brevity, missing words out is fine, I wouldn’t think that person didn’t know the correct way.

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Userplusnumbers · 02/10/2018 19:18

Fwiw - I do agree with the point about "could care less", but try to be sanguine about these things, as long as the meaning is clear, it's not worth getting hung up on some imaginary rules of 'grammar'

Or you could go full out French and start taking people to court about it GrinWink

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pigsDOfly · 02/10/2018 19:13

I keep hearing people saying 'the proof's in the pudding', which makes no sense. The expression is 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. For some reason this really annoys me.

I've noticed people shortening a lot of these old expressions and rendering them meaningless. People just don't seem to listen to themselves when they speak.

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FaithHopeAndSkulduggery · 02/10/2018 19:11

Userplusnumbers

Point taken. But I can still feel annoyed. Don’t remind me about ‘could care less’ pp.

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Userplusnumbers · 02/10/2018 19:08

It doth verily vex me OP. Tis often spake that language wilst change, but not for I.

I heartily concur with all your summations.

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LaLaLolly · 02/10/2018 19:05

For the same reason people choose to end statements with question marks:


"I had soup for lunch?"
"I'm from Wales?"

And they choose to say: "I could care less"

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BlackLambAndGreyFalcon · 02/10/2018 19:01

I haven't particularly noticed this, but what winds me up is when people incorrectly use "used to" in the negative which seems to happen all the bloody time. E.g:

"I didn't used to play tennis" is incorrect. It should be "I didn't use to play tennis".

"I used to play tennis" is correct however.

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bridgetreilly · 02/10/2018 18:48

OP, YANBU. I have been lamenting the decline of the past participle adjective for years. It makes no sense at all to use the present form. In speech, I agree, it's often (though not always) hard to hear any difference, but in the written word it looks awful and makes no sense.

I mostly blame texting/social media/autocorrect. I find that helps keep my blood slightly below boiling point rather than blaming poor education.

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Shallishanti123 · 02/10/2018 18:42

Sethis, I agree with you.

I can't remember ever being taught grammar at school, whereas my primary school age children started learning it straight away. Some of the things they come out with confuse the hell out of me. It makes me really AWARE that I wasn't taught grammar and I try my best to get things right.

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Ceilingrose · 02/10/2018 16:41

YANBU

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FaithHopeAndSkulduggery · 02/10/2018 13:46

I think there are also fewer children reading for pleasure as there are so many alternatives. They are no longer regularly seeing the written form of words and are just going by sound and guessing.

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Sethis · 02/10/2018 12:19

Could've and could of both sound extremely similar when it comes to pronunciation, so for speaking and listening getting it wrong is understandable. However there is a clear and obvious difference when writing that should be corrected.

I think the Millennial generation (my own) got screwed out of basic English knowledge because for all my time in school we were never really taught the grammar at all, it was just corrections as you went along. Nobody sat down and said 'here's a list of irregular verbs, and here's how the tenses work'.

On the other hand I hear now about primary school kids being given 2 hours of homework about subjunctive clauses and split infinitives, so maybe we got off easy...

I do know, however, that learning a language is much easier when you understand the mechanics of your own native tongue.

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bigKiteFlying · 02/10/2018 11:04

Interesting thread - DD2 is having the ed problem at the minute.

Main issue seems to be not being corrected at school for a long time - so were are going over at home.

Though I’ve done the could of instead of could've - not covered in my school sounds same in my accent and I've only realised it's wrong as an adult. Took extra reading in my 20's to feel happy about apostrophes.

My older children at doing commonly confused words at the minute most of the ones that get mentioned on these threads are covered– one that bemuses me is take and bring apparently these days they are muddled up.

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ButtermilkBiscuits · 02/10/2018 10:52

The one I absolutely hate is when people say brought instead of bought. Eg "We just brought a new house". 🤬 No you fucking moron, you BOUGHT a new house! You don't bry things, you BUY them and then they are bought.

Rant over. Blush

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Aspenfrost · 02/10/2018 10:47

“What do you think TO this dress?”

I saw the above on the Style forum recently.

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Aspenfrost · 02/10/2018 10:45

OP:

Because they are not properly educated?

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Ktay · 02/10/2018 10:44

@Sethis I do wonder how often sign writers spot such errors and whether they are expected to raise them with the client or just don’t bother!

Another bugbear of mine is how ‘in’ and ‘on’ increasingly seem to be used interchangeably. I think a lot of this is because it’s an easy typo but I do wonder sometimes whether people have actively chosen the incorrect version - possibly because they’ve read so many typos! That said, I haven’t heard it in (on) spoken English (yet).

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gimeallthecake · 02/10/2018 09:46

I worked with a french person who used to write am instead of I'm! And as a result of of reading it constantly am after getting into the habit of doing it now too Grin

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Sethis · 02/10/2018 09:39

Since we're confessing to personal bugbears I have to go with affect vs effect.

Also, the utter inability to use the possessive 's properly. I used to drive past a big yellow sign for something like 'Ben's Barn' across the front of a huge warehouse and they hadn't used an apostrophe. If you're going to spend literally thousands of pounds on a huge lit up yellow sign on your roof, at least make it gramatically correct!!

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JamieVardysHavingAParty · 02/10/2018 08:58

I want people to stop saying "exasperated" when they mean "exacerbated".

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BookMeOnTheSudExpress · 02/10/2018 08:53

Faith- you'll find it in linguistics papers- have a look under "atomisation of meaning" otherwise you get a billion hits on atoms!

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FaithHopeAndSkulduggery · 02/10/2018 08:39

@Spiderdemon

Where can I learn more about atomisation?

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FaithHopeAndSkulduggery · 02/10/2018 08:37

@BookMeOnTheSudExpress

I specifically mean people saying things like ‘use to go’ in writing.

Or as some say ‘I pacifically mean in writing’.

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MrJollyLivesNextDoor · 02/10/2018 08:08

Oh I don't think my craziness has ever been disputed 😂 @glintandglide

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