25 Sep 2012, 5:26 am
25 Sep 2012, 6:18 am
CyborgUprising wrote:
I dislike the term based on the logic (or lack thereof) behind it. How does someone "used to?"
How can someone be "used to" something? One can use something, be using or have used something, but one cannot used to something. It simply makes no sense, like much of the English language. "A common occurrence" or "it happens quite often" are far more logical uses of English. If one wants to convey that they are not bothered by something, they can say "It happens so often, it doesn't even bother me." Something happening "all the time" is also one of those illogical applications of English. Why not just say "it happens many times?"
How can someone be "used to" something? One can use something, be using or have used something, but one cannot used to something. It simply makes no sense, like much of the English language. "A common occurrence" or "it happens quite often" are far more logical uses of English. If one wants to convey that they are not bothered by something, they can say "It happens so often, it doesn't even bother me." Something happening "all the time" is also one of those illogical applications of English. Why not just say "it happens many times?"
This is what I immediately thought when I saw this thread.
It would be logical to say "I am used to shovel cow manure" or "I am used to serve greasy burgers to people who shouldn't be eating them." Then, you are saying that some unidentifiable entities are using you to do something. It ends up in passive voice, of course--my theory would be that when that rule--don't use passive voice--came out, people created the phrasal verb due to the fact that they could not identify who was using them. Then, though, there is the past tense meaning--"I used to go to the mall each day." That one's origin confuses me.
EDIT: Actually, the "used to" that I was first writing about would have transformed into an adverb rather than a phrasal verb--the "used to" with the past tense meaning is the phrasal verb. In the sentence "I am used to shoveling cow manure," which would be the "new," non-passive sentence for "I am used to shovel cow manure," "used to" could be replaced with "quickly" to make "I am quickly shoveling cow manure." That, of course, only makes the word/s more intriguing, however--I don't know of any other two-word adverbs off the top of my head. And the past tense meaning remains a mystery... for now... I'll probably look it up later on Google n-gram to see when it began to be used that way.
25 Sep 2012, 11:39 am
25 Sep 2012, 3:10 pm
25 Sep 2012, 3:14 pm
