Both are fine for me.

===1:Did we not at one time live at the place we just passed? (or at least fix the spelling of the "past" which should be "passed". I try not to use contractions too much, and the "used" feels wrong to me in this instance...but I speak oddly on occasion.

===2: Sounds odd. However, the sentence is getting in the way of the better way to say it. I am, once again, odd.

Question 1: It sounds a little bit off to me. It would sound more natural to me phrased as, "Didn't we used to live at that place we just drove past?"

Question 2: It sounds fine to me.

They look okay to me, but I don't see any native English speakers using quite such a proper phraseology in conversation, though. :) More common phraseology would be:

"Didn't we used to live there?" (implying someplace close by that we just passed)

"Doesn't Sasha live at where that police car just stopped?"

...but then again, I'm not a linguistic lunatic like someone I know. :grin: But as an author, as you wrote those two phrases, they look ok from a grammar perspective, if not a colloquial "real world" one. :)

I'm from South Florida, which is the lost borough of Manhattan. New Yorker rules-of-speech apply. :) On second read, you could say "...live where that..." and it would still sound okay to me.

re: surprises. I call 'em as I see 'em. Hee.

Number one seems fine. Number two I'd probably prefer if the "at" on the end was dropped.

Both sound good to me. I might drop the "at" in Q2, but it would be of equivalent goodness, not any better.

sorry to take so long for the one you mailed out--life has been hell. It'll find its way to you... some time vaguely soonish.

You coming to faire closing weekend? Jesse'll be in and we'll be there on Sunday.

They both sound fine to me. I would likely drop the "at" in the second question as well.

You need to run this through the "also a linguist, so my intuitions are shot" test.

"Didn't we used to live where we just drove past?" is... okay-ish. (For me, this means I can't imagine saying it, but I'd answer it.) Insert 'at' : "Didn't we used to live at where we just drove past?" is better.

"Doesn't Sasha live where that police car just stopped at?" Again okay-ish. Remove 'at' for a nicer version.

I'm Australian, I grew up in rural New South Wales and have lived in Sydney for seven years.

I think they're both fine, very idiomatic-sounding. One question, though, is "didn't we used to" actually grammatical? Obviously no one is ever going to mistake the meaning, but surely "didn't we" should take an infinitive?

"Didn't we use to" looks even more wrong, though. What to do?

"Didn't we used to live where we just drove past?"

For me, the use of 'where' feels odd in this sentence. If I were the speaker and I wanted all of those pieces in the sentence, I would probably say "Didn't we used to live at the house/building/whatever we just drove past?".

"Doesn't Sasha live where that police car just stopped at?"

The use of 'where' in this sentence seems to be much easier to accept, though the 'at' seems to be unneeded and/or redundant.

If only allowed minimal changes, I would simply drop the 'at'.

With more changes allowed, even if I were speaking quickly, I would probably say "Doesn't Sasha live at the house where that police car just stopped?".

Without helping your structure study, I would most likely say, "Did you see where the polic car stopped? Doesn't Sasha live there?". :P

I know there is a reason for my feelings on the word 'where', but I'm not sure what the reason is and I'm not sure if it's a good reason! *grin*