What kind of past habit fits this text? “were always doing” or “used to do”

grammargrammaticalityused-towould

As I understand it, there are three ways to explain past habits:

  • Would
  • Past continuous
  • Used to

According to that, what is the best form of past habits for the following text?

My sister and I had a wonderful childhood. We grew up in the country, and we made the most of it. There was a special place in the woods where we would play every day. Lots of wildflowers grew there, and we would pick lots of them to take home. It seems like we (were always doing / used to do) something outside.

Could someone explain which one is correct and why?

Best Answer

It seemed like we were always

  • playing outside
  • in detention
  • off on some trip or other
  • involved in some escapade or other ....

(note the evaluation here is also set back in the past, 'seemed')

is the usual way of showing the mindset of foregrounding prominent memories (so that regular events are promoted hyperbolically to durative consideration).

Only the first example above uses the past continuous, though.

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Your own 'There was a special place in the woods where we would play every day.' shows a perfectly fine example of the use of 'would' to show the habitual past. But using 'would' after 'it seemed like' forces an irrealis sense, so not a choice.

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'It seems/ed like we used to ...' [play, etc] defaults to a concessive statement, again not what is required.

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