"Used to" From Scratch.

The used-to thread participants made a few daring statements, some of which can be classed as fallacious and others as half true.
I have taken the liberty of listing the more outrageous ones under the "fallacious" rubric. We can deal with the half-truths later.

Before you go there though, try to take in what I think "used to+infinitive" is all about.
There are only three main points that I would like to make. They may seem long on generality and short on specifics, but we may parse every one of them to pieces later should they turn out to be controversial.

(1) "Used to" is not a past tense. It is as present as the present perfect tense.
It functions as an anti present perfect; it divorces a past state or a past series of events from the present state of affairs by contrasting the past and the present.

(2) Its past morphology is just that—morphology. Any coupling of "used to" to the very much past "did" is suspect. Mind you, its semantics is present.

(3) It is not a marker of habituality. It often gets this reading from adverbials such as often, always, etc., but when left to its own devices, it merely manages to suggest a stative reading. A habit is not a state.

Fallacious:
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trzeba jeszcze pamiętać, że 'used to' używamy w odniesieniu do czynności, które miało się kiedyś w zwyczaju wykonywać, więc nie moze to być jednorazowa (jedna) czynność.
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np I used to visit my granparents at the weekends (odwiedzałem dziadków w weekend (już teraz nie odwiedzam w weekend, a może nawet w ogóle, moze już nie żyją itp)
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I stnieje też forma teraźniejsza, która oznacza "mam zwyczaj (przywykłam) coś robić" i wygląda podobnie: "I'm used to doing sth".
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Co do I worked in the bank to stwierdzasz fakt i tyle. Ale gdy mowisz I used to work in the bank to chcesz podkreslic, ze znasz sie na tej pracy np. gdy ktos sie chwali, ze pracuje w banku
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popularne tez kiedys bylo np. I never used to do sth np: play football

> I stnieje też forma teraźniejsza, która oznacza "mam zwyczaj
>(przywykłam) coś robić" i wygląda podobnie: "I'm used to doing sth".

I am used to sth = I am accustomed to it.

I raczej nie "mam zwyczaj" tylko "jestem przyzwyczajony/przywyklem do czegos".

Call me stupid but I don't get it.

>it divorces a past state or ==>a
>past series of eventsthe past and the present.

OK. What's wrong with this one ( classified as fallacious):

>trzeba jeszcze pamiętać, że 'used to' używamy w odniesieniu do
>czynności, które miało się kiedyś w zwyczaju wykonywać, więc nie moze
>to być jednorazowa (jedna) czynność. ?

I can see flaws in reasoning in these :

>np I used to visit my granparents at the weekends (odwiedzałem
>dziadków w weekend (już teraz nie odwiedzam w weekend, a może nawet w
>ogóle, moze już nie żyją itp)

Did you put it in "fallacious" category becouse of this : "a może nawet w
>ogóle, moze już nie żyją itp"?

> I stnieje też forma teraźniejsza, która oznacza "mam zwyczaj
>(przywykłam) coś robić" i wygląda podobnie: "I'm used to doing sth".

Well, I think it's nonsense, but I'm not sure.


Elaborate some more on the topic, please.

>>it divorces a past state or ==>a
>>past series of eventscontrasting
>>the past and the present.

The present perfect makes or wants to make some kind of connection between a past state/event and now:

"They have worked for IBM for many years."

It says by implication that they work for IBM now.

This past-to-present connection is easily cancelable though, because I can say
"They have worked for IBM for many years but they work for BMW now"
and the sentence is not self-contradictory.

As long as the inference is not canceled, the past-to-present connection holds by default.

"Used to" makes you believe that there is no such past-to-present connection.
"They used to work for IBM for many years" implies quite the opposite: they don't work for IBM now.

This inferred past-to-present disconnect can also be easily broken and the connection established:
They used to work for IBM for many years and they work for IBM now.

>OK. What's wrong with this one ( classified as fallacious):
>
>>trzeba jeszcze pamiętać, że 'used to' używamy w odniesieniu do
>>czynności, które miało się kiedyś w zwyczaju wykonywać, więc nie
>moze
>>to być jednorazowa (jedna) czynność. ?

The Temple of Doom used to stand there.
Does it mean the Temple of Doom stood there frequently?

>Did you put it in "fallacious" category becouse of this : "a może
>nawet w
>>ogóle, moze już nie żyją itp"?

Because of "moze już nie żyją":
"Jefferson used to be president" is no good.
"Clinton used to be president" is fine.

Yes, you can say:

>"They have worked for IBM for many years but they work for BMW now"

and it sounds apparently OK but in fact it's grammatically incorrect, in my opinion. The Present Perfect tense is a PRESENT tense and cannot refer to something that definitely ended - they could have worked for IBM in the last century - this is not a PRESENT tense! I think the correct form would be:

"The worked for IBM for many years but they work for BMW now."

A correct sentence would also be: "They've worked for IBM for so many years and now they're being fired." - It means that they still work for IBM or have just been fired. Or: "I've worked for IBM for 10 years." - this is about the past 10 years but it connects to the present. Or "I've dropped it and it's broken!" but not "*I've dropped it and it broke*"

I'm not a native speaker so I can't be a hundred percent sure if I'm right and there are certainly people with a superior knowledge of grammar here, so please correct me if necessary.

>This inferred past-to-present disconnect can also be easily broken and
>the connection established:
>They used to work for IBM for many years and they work for IBM now.

Your sentence does not seem to imply that they have worked for IBM all the time. I don't think it re-establishes a connection between past and present activities other than the fact that 'they' have returned to work where they once worked. It necessarily implies that they have workd elsewhere along the way, otherwise there would be no difference between "they have worked ... for many years" and "They used to work... years and they work for IBM now", or 'used to' would have to be intepreted as the 'past' component of the 'perfect' meaning, the present component being realised by the clause with 'now', i.e. your sentence would be equivalent to stating "they have worked for IBM for many years", with the Present Perfect Tense describing an action/state continuing up to now.

>>OK. What's wrong with this one ( classified as fallacious):
>>
>>>trzeba jeszcze pamiętać, że 'used to' używamy w odniesieniu
>do
>>>czynności, które miało się kiedyś w zwyczaju wykonywać, więc
>nie
>>moze
>>>to być jednorazowa (jedna) czynność. ?
>
>The Temple of Doom used to stand there.
>Does it mean the Temple of Doom stood there frequently?

czynność does not usually refer to a state.


>
>>Did you put it in "fallacious" category becouse of this : "a może
>>nawet w
>>>ogóle, moze już nie żyją itp"?
>
>Because of "moze już nie żyją":
>"Jefferson used to be president" is no good.
>"Clinton used to be president" is fine.

'I used to visit my grandparents at weekends' is fine even if the said grandparents are not alive.
Consider this context:
What do you do at weekends?
Well, I used to visit my gps at weekends*, but I don't do now. They both passed away last year. (the focus is on visiting gps, or, actually, visiting someone as a weekend activity rather than on gps themselves)

The same sentence is incorrect in the following context.
- How did you get on with your late grandparents?
- I used to...