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In all the coursebooks I've used there has not been a mention of the structure used not to in a sense that somebody did not do something for some time but started doing it. Consider the following examples:

  1. He didn't use to do a lot of experiments.
  2. He used not to do a lot of experiments.

Is example (2) grammatical and/or acceptable? If so, is there any pragmatic difference between (1) and (2)?

Arek
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  • It's only relevant to the written form, because normally it's not possible to differentiate in speech, but I'd rather write He didn't used* to do a lot of experiments.* Having said that, I double there's universal agreement between grammarians / pedants on that score. Note that the contraction in example #1 is perfectly natural, but contracted He usen't* to do that* would generally be seen as an "affectation". Also note that the negation can be shifted closer to the infinitive: 2a He used to not do* that.* – FumbleFingers Sep 19 '21 at 11:32
  • Yes: it's grammatical, but acceptability is another matter. Syntactically, this "use" is a lexical verb in 1. and an auxiliary verb in 2., the latter belonging to a somewhat more formal style and only marginally acceptable to most speakers. Younger speakers in particular, I believe, reject its auxiliary use altogether. – BillJ Sep 19 '21 at 13:38
  • They both mean the same thing, but #2 is unidiomatic in American English; you will virtually never hear it. – Tinfoil Hat Sep 19 '21 at 15:47

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