Anuradha Chepur wrote:I thought actual usage, however, I am not sure.
I think this is a bit puzzling like one of those 'count the triangles'
riddles. Initially you see only few, but careful observation will reveal a lot more embedded ones.
'would' sounds less common at first, but in reality, may be it is a lot more common than 'used to'.
Have a look at this:
"When my wife, Jane, and I were first given the information
contained in 1 above, we refused to accept it. Our intuitions told
us very strongly that the use of would for past habit was rather
formal. We were convinced that it was relatively infrequent,
particularly in spoken English. We were so convinced of our
intuitions that we insisted on checking the words out for
ourselves. Our search confirmed the picture given in 1, and
further confirmed that this use is just as frequent in spoken as in
written English.
The fact that would is three times as frequent does not mean that
it is three times as important. If you look at the evidence one
thing that emerges is that frequently a string of woulds are
introduced by a used to: When I was a kid we used to go to my
grandmother’s at the seaside. And we’d get up early every
morning and dash across to the beach, and we’d spend ages in
the sea, even if it was freezing... So maybe in sequences like this
it is the used to which marks the function of the string of clauses
that follow, and which is the primary marker of meaning. The
occurrences of would or, more frequently ‘d, which follow may be
there because they are less salient and do not offend our general
dislike of repetition.
We cannot know for sure what the reason is but there are two
pedagogic conclusions to be drawn. First we should draw
attention to this meaning of would relatively early in a course. It is
not an unusual form which is used only in very formal
circumstances and should therefore be left until the late
intermediate stage. Secondly we should be careful in
demonstrating the use of used to for learners. We should take
account of the fact that in use it is quickly replaced by would and
is therefore rarely repeated again and again. If we choose to
indulge in this repetition in order to offer a stark presentation of
used to, we should also inform students that sequences like this
are unlikely to occur outside the classroom. We should
demonstrate very quickly the true relationship between used to
and would."
What Have the Corpus Linguists Done for
Us? By Dave Willis