English 101 with Trihan sometimes!

[TerranRich]

I've never heard it said "at yours" before. It's always "at your place" in conversation, at least in my experience.

[Oliwerko]

True, but I've seen the phrase "up yours" used pretty frequently.

[Stupot]

'at yours' is fine.  It's pretty standard practice.

[TerranRich]

True, but I've seen the phrase "up yours" used pretty frequently.

So have I, and it's not usually in good spirits.

[Oliwerko]

'at yours' is fine.  It's pretty standard practice.

as phrases like this usually are, because they don't really "contain" anything offensive 

[kaputtnik]

Party up yours!

No, but I've got one serious concern. Lots of people seem to write things like "I used to date your mum, but I didn't used to brag about it.", which looks completely wrong to me. Is this correct, or is it a strange automatism that comes from using the fixed expression "I used to" in a negative context?

Normally you should think "I didn't use to" was the right way to put it.

[Oliwerko]

Normally you should think "I didn't use to" was the right way to put it.

Yup, that's the correct way. "Didn't used to" is wrong.

[GuyAwesome]

Is that because the "didn't" in "didn't use to" means it's already past tense, so the "use" doesn't have to be, while the other part doesn't have that modifier so you have to have "used"? Could you have (although it sounds clunky to my ear) "I did use to date your mother, but I never used to brag about it" - swapping the tense modifiers?
(If that's what you'd call them. Sorry, I'm a native English speaker but have no formal training - so my grasp of grammar and punctuation, etc, is more luck than judgement. As has been said, a trained non-native speaker probably knows the rules of a language better than the average native speaker.)

Incidentally: I pretty much exclusively hear 'at yours' used instead of 'at your place', unless whoever's saying it is going for a deliberately cheesy "Your place or mine, hur hur hur" vibe. Colloquial vs. 'proper' English, I suppose. 'Up yours' is generally used in good spirits in my experience - or at least jokingly, between friends. It's just too ... quaint sounding to have any impact if used 'for real' any more. Or maybe it's just that I know better swearwords now than I did as a teenager...

[Anian]

LOL, what do you mean native speaker without formal training? Didn't you go to school?

Yeah, you can "switch" between them, "didn't" and "did" puts it in the past tense.

[paolo]

@InCreator

I'm always misusing "ä" [æ] when speaking english. I cannot understand why there isn't a letter for this vocal.

An apple. (äpl)
Language. (längvich)

It's there! And yet, I'm never sure if it really is.

Dance. I say "dääns". British say "daans". I'm wrong. But it feels so natural there. And I think I've heard it with my version million times in hollywood movies.

Also, lack of "ö" in whole language feels like absurd. "World". I haven't heard it pronounced like "worm".
Say those words! Hear the difference between 2 "o"-s? Or is there none?
So there's "ö" in language. But it's SO rare! In estonian, shortest word is "öö" (night). A whole word dedicated to and made of 2 same vocals!

But english... none.
Helluva strange language. I will never get over misusing those two - for me - so natural letters.

Another sick thing is using in and on correctly. I usually make (or might make) mistakes. I got sick on december or in December? My language-sense points to latter. But I'm never sure really, since I rely on sense only (as with all languages I know) and never memorize any actual grammar rules.

ALSO thing I never made clear for myself, even though I got A's on tests:

Is an animal he, she or it? If I want to speak about a cat, do I have to lift (her/his/its) tail first to decide on gender?  

So many questions!

Unlike some other languages, English has more sounds than it has letters to represent them, so the same letter (or combination of letters) is used to represent more than one sound. The vowel "a" can represent the "short" sound in "cat" or the "long" sound in "day". The sound in "dance" is the same as the sound in "cat" in northern England and the US, which is why you hear it pronounced like that in American films. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-open_front_unrounded_vowel. For the vowel in "bath" as pronounced in southern England (which is considered the standard for British English), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_back_unrounded_vowel. (No point in me trying to explain this with words - you need to hear the sounds.)

The vowel sounds in "worm" and "world" are identical - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_central_unrounded_vowel. These are different from the sound in "for" - that is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_back_rounded_vowel. (This is for British English - other varieties of English may vary.) I'm not sure how "öö" is pronounced in Estonian. Maybe it is like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_rounded_vowel or this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_front_rounded_vowel

Animals... usually you use "it", but "he" or "she" can also be used when you know the (physical) gender of the animal, and especially when talking about an animal affectionately (such as when referring to a pet). For example "Is that your dog? She's lovely" ("It's lovely" would sound strange here, so usually you would ask whether it is a male or a female first and then say "He's/She's lovely").

@GuyAwesome

Is that because the "didn't" in "didn't use to" means it's already past tense, so the "use" doesn't have to be, while the other part doesn't have that modifier so you have to have "used"?

Yep, "to use" is an old verb meaning "to do habitually" that is now used only in the past tense, so, strictly speaking, "didn't use to" is correct, but because the verb is now only used in the past (as "used") and only before "to", "used to" naturally sounds like it should become "didn't used to" in the negative. Both forms ("didn't use to", "didn't used to") are now considered correct.

[GuyAwesome]

anian:
Heh. Yeah I went to school, even did a bit of Linguistics at university. I just don't count GSCE-level English Language (I was better at Literature, anyway) or a couple of months of 'paying the bare minimum attention to get a pass in Ling 101', as formal training . Hell, my mum is a teacher*, and her grammar, punctuation, and spelling are worse than mine.
For comparison, GCSE French probably included more detail about the grammatical rules of the language in 2 years than I covered in however many years of English classes. (Of course, I remember even less of that than I do English grammar.)

* Admittedly, a primary school teacher and not a university lecturer. Still, the point stands - 'a basic education' is not the same as 'formal training'. I meant degree level, at least...

paolo:
Ta, didn't know that about 'use', but honestly both 'didn't use to' and 'didn't used to' sound pretty awkward to me.
Is 'use' in the sense of 'to utilise'/'make use of' ("I use my computer every day", "I often use the stairs instead of the lift") a different form, and so can be present tense? Or have I missed the point somewhere?

[Stupot]

Normally you should think "I didn't use to" was the right way to put it.

Yup, that's the correct way. "Didn't used to" is wrong.

"didn't use to" is not correct at all... in this context you always use "used".  There is always a 'd' at the end, even it doesn't sound like it's there when you say it aloud.

However, in the original sentence you should omit the second used of "used to" altogether:

"I used to date your mum, but I didn't brag about it." is much better form.

Using "used to" with something you didn't do always sounds a bit wrong (especially if you've already used it to describe something you did do, in the same sentence).

It's probably better to say "I never bragged about it" and "I wasn't captain of the foozeball team" rather than "I didn't used to..."

[Oliwerko]

Now I'm a bit confused.

"I did not use to" is gramatically incorrect, while "I didn't used to" is correct, but only sounds weird?

[Stupot]

There are two contexts where you never say "use to" - you  only use "used to":

1. (as we have been discussing) If you used to do or be something.
e.g. "I used to work on a farm", "I used to be good at swimming".

2. If you are accustomed to something or it happens often.
e.g. "I am used to being called a moron", "I am used to finding blood in my stools"

But, as for example 1... if you make that a negative it is just better form to say "I've never worked on a farm" or "I was never any good at swimming", rather than "didn't used to..."

[Anian]

...just avoid using it, think of it as a writing exercise  

[TerranRich]

According to the people here: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php91711 it's "didn't use to".

Then again, they also say to instead use "never used to" and all confusion would disappear.

[Stupot]

According to OED:

21. With to and inf.: To be accustomed or wont to do something.
  In very frequent use from c 1400, but now only in pa. tense used to, [...], and colloq. in did (not) use (or used) to: see also USEN'T, USETER; used to could: see CAN v.1 A. 7.

So, these days there is always a 'd', even when it's negative.

I like usen't ('used not').

"I used to date your mum, but I usen't to brag about it."

[TerranRich]

From what I read of the text you quoted, it seems as though either way ("didn't use to" or "didn't used to") is correct.

[Mr Flibble]

Usen't is uncomfortably close to amn't and it makes me feel itchy inside.

[Snarky]

"didn't use to" is not correct at all... in this context you always use "used".

Nonsense. Would you say something like "when I was a kid, I didn't went to school"?

According to OED:

21. With to and inf.: To be accustomed or wont to do something.
  In very frequent use from c 1400, but now only in pa. tense used to, [...], and colloq. in did (not) use (or used) to: see also USEN'T, USETER; used to could: see CAN v.1 A. 7.

So, these days there is always a 'd', even when it's negative.

No, the OED is just saying that these days we don't talk about "using to do something" except in the past tense. We don't say "I still use to get my coffee at Starbucks."