"I'm used to drink coffee everyday"

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DJ - 15 Jan 2009 20:53 GMT

Hi,

I have a question about this sentence:

1. "I'm used to drink coffee everyday."

Does it mean the same as sentence 2 below?

2. "I drink coffee everyday"

-------
I must admit, I used to think sentence 1 was unusual and had a different
meaning(*1)(*2). However, I asked a friend this question this morning,
and he said sentence 1 was perfectly fine and had the same meaning as "I
drink coffee everyday".

(*1) Especially after I found (virtually) zero search results from
Google Web and Books.

"I'm used to drink coffee everyday" : 1(yahoo answers)
"I am used to drink coffee everyday" : 0

(*2) "be used to" means "accustomed to", "in the habit of", etc.
Longman dictionary has this:

http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/used_1
be/get used to (doing) something
to have experienced something so that __it no longer
seems surprising, difficult, strange__ etc:

So I thought if this "habit forming" didn't involve the feel of
surprises and/or strangeness and/or strangeness in the beginning, then
it wouldn't be a good way to say "Someone is used to doing something".

For example, this sentence from Longman dictionary:

"I do the dishes every day, so I'm used to it".

Does it implies that the person didn't quite like doing the dishes in
the beginning? (Or it's also possible that s/he simply picked it up
right in the beginning and happily doing it from then on?)

Thanks,

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Leslie Danks - 15 Jan 2009 21:15 GMT

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> Does it mean the same as sentence 2 below?

It's not a correct English sentence and doesn't mean anything. Perhaps you
are thinking of:

"I used to drink coffee every day."
This means that at some time in the past you drank coffee every day. Note
that "everyday" is an adjective -- as in "everyday routine", for example;
the adverb(ial form) is "every day".

> 2. "I drink coffee everyday"

(Should be: "I drink coffee every day."
This means you are drinking coffee every day at the moment -- as opposed to
in the past (see above).

A third possibility (for comparison) is:

3. "I'm used to drinking coffee every day."
This means that you are accustomed to drinking coffee every day, in other
words, drinking coffee is a daily habit which you have become used to.

> -------
> I must admit, I used to think sentence 1 was unusual and had a different
> meaning(*1)(*2). However, I asked a friend this question this morning,
> and he said sentence 1 was perfectly fine and had the same meaning as "I
> drink coffee everyday".

I would avoid asking this particular friend for advice on English usage.

> (*1) Especially after I found (virtually) zero search results from
> Google Web and Books.
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
> the beginning? (Or it's also possible that s/he simply picked it up
> right in the beginning and happily doing it from then on?)

What is implied depends on what the speaker has become used to. If the
activity is unpleasant (very few people like doing the dishes), your first
interpretation is correct. If the activity is pleasant (drinking coffee,
for example), the speaker may well have enjoyed it right from the start.

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Les (BrE)

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Glenn Knickerbocker - 15 Jan 2009 21:20 GMT

> 1. "I'm used to drink coffee everyday."

It doesn't have any intelligible meaning. It might have been intended
as either of these:

a. "I used to drink coffee every day."
At some time in the past, I drank it every day. I don't anymore.

b. "I'm used to drinking coffee every day."
I am accustomed to drinking it every day. This is probably
implying that I didn't get any coffee today.

"Everyday" as a single word is only an adjective, never an adverb. It
doesn't mean something that necessarily happens every day; it means
something ordinary or unremarkable.

¬R

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DJ - 15 Jan 2009 21:28 GMT

...

> "Everyday" as a single word is only an adjective, never an adverb. It
> doesn't mean something that necessarily happens every day; it means
> something ordinary or unremarkable.

Thanks for reminding me this one. It's funny, because I did type "every
day" but Google displayed "everyday" as a correction .... grrr

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DJ - 15 Jan 2009 21:22 GMT

Shoot.. I made a terrible mistake...

I'm used to drinking coffee everyday ....

Please ignore this thread.

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Prai Jei - 16 Jan 2009 20:32 GMT

DJ set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time continuum:

> Shoot.. I made a terrible mistake...
>
> I'm used to drinking coffee everyday ....
>
> Please ignore this thread.

According to a report in one of our national newspapers today, too much
coffee can give you hallucinations.

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Robert Lieblich - 16 Jan 2009 22:31 GMT

> DJ set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time continuum:
>
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> According to a report in one of our national newspapers today, too much
> coffee can give you hallucinations.

I drink lots of caffeine, and I doubt that. And so does my friend
Harvey the six-foot rabbit.

(And lemme tellya, a rabbit with six feet is very lucky.)

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Bob Lieblich
Actually I swore off caffeine years ago, but it spoils the gag

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Wood Avens - 17 Jan 2009 11:13 GMT

>> According to a report in one of our national newspapers today, too much
>> coffee can give you hallucinations.
>
>I drink lots of caffeine, and I doubt that. And so does my friend
>Harvey the six-foot rabbit.

And so does Harvey's friend Ben Goldacre, the Guardian's Bad Science
columnist:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/17/bad-science-ben-goldacre

(Nonetheless, just to be on the safe side I carefully didn't read it
until after I'd made myself a double expresso.)

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Katy Jennison

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Nick - 19 Jan 2009 20:42 GMT

>>> According to a report in one of our national newspapers today, too much
>>> coffee can give you hallucinations.
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> (Nonetheless, just to be on the safe side I carefully didn't read it
> until after I'd made myself a double expresso.)

One thing he missed was this:

They say that heavy caffeine drinkers were three times more likely to
have answered affirmatively to just one LSHS question: "In the past, I
have had the experience of hearing a person's voice and then found that
no one was there."

I can answer that truthfully - it happened quite a lot to me in my
youth: usually I thought I heard someone call my name. This is a very
common event, I believe.

In those days I hardly drank any caffeine containing beverages at all.
I drink a lot more now and it never happens.

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tony cooper - 20 Jan 2009 03:08 GMT

>In those days I hardly drank any caffeine containing beverages at all.
>I drink a lot more now and it never happens.

For want of a hyphen a meaning was lost.

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Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

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Chuck Riggs - 20 Jan 2009 11:54 GMT

>>In those days I hardly drank any caffeine containing beverages at all.
>>I drink a lot more now and it never happens.
>
>For want of a hyphen a meaning was lost.

Apparently not.

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Regards,

Chuck Riggs
Near Dublin, Ireland

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Chuck Riggs - 17 Jan 2009 15:45 GMT

>> DJ set the following eddies spiralling through the space-time continuum:
>>
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>
>(And lemme tellya, a rabbit with six feet is very lucky.)

So is a six-footed one.

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Regards,

Chuck Riggs
Near Dublin, Ireland

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009

"I'm used to drink coffee everyday"