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#117395 - 12/09/03 03:29 PM anymore
AnnaStrophic Carpal Tunnel Registered: 03/15/00 Posts: 6511 Loc: lower upstate New York	I've always used the above in a negative sense: "I don't get out much anymore." Recently I've begun hearing/reading it without the negative: "It's too cold for me anymore" or "All I read is Nora Roberts anymore." Is this an USn regional thing? Or does it cross ponds?
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#117396 - 12/09/03 04:43 PM Re: anymore
wwh Carpal Tunnel Registered: 01/18/01 Posts: 13858	Dear AS: your first quote was part of a popular song, which can have helped its currency. The phrase itself looks to the past, and often to something lost or regretted, so repetition impossible or undesired. I'm having difficulty thinking of use of it omitting the negative, unless I use it as two separate words. Your second two quotes seem rather awkward.
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#117397 - 12/09/03 04:56 PM Re: anymore
Jenet journeyman Registered: 11/22/03 Posts: 81	I'd never heard of this usage, so I was surprised to see lots of examples show up on the Harvard dialect survey of US English: http://hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/maps.php See questions 54 to 57. The first two are rated as massively unacceptable (only about 5%), but the latter two have about a 20% or more acceptability. I'm not clear what the grammatical situation is that makes them different. Traditional "some" is for positive statements, "I've got some", and "any" is for questions and negatives and suchlike, "Have you got any?" and "I haven't got any". With "any more" I can make questions and negatives "Do you go there any more?" and "I don't go there any more" but there doesn't seem to be a positive: you have to say "I still go there", I suppose.
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#117398 - 12/09/03 09:39 PM Re: anymore
Bingley Carpal Tunnel Registered: 04/09/00 Posts: 3065 Loc: Jakarta	In reply to: Traditional "some" is for positive statements, "I've got some", and "any" is for questions and negatives and suchlike, "Have you got any?" and "I haven't got any". This may be how the rule is traditionally formulated, but I'm not sure it's correct. It doesn't take into account such positive sentences as "Any of them will do." Bingley _________________________ Bingley
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#117399 - 12/09/03 10:22 PM quoth the raven
Alex Williams Pooh-Bah Registered: 01/05/01 Posts: 1814 Loc: Spam Factory	Recently I've begun hearing/reading it without the negative: "It's too cold for me anymore" or "All I read is Nora Roberts anymore." I have heard this usage. A typical example to me would be something like It seems like all we ever do is fight anymore. It expresses a recent trend that is a departure from the way things used to be. Both of the examples you gave fit this pattern. It's too cold for me anymore (but I used to be happy with the climate). All I read is Nora Roberts anymore (but I used to have wider reading interests).
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#117400 - 12/10/03 02:09 AM Re: anymore
Jenet journeyman Registered: 11/22/03 Posts: 81	"Any of them will do." "Any" also occurs in positive conditionals: "If you've got any". It's used anywhere that isn't an ordinary positive statement. I think the "any" in "Any of them will do" -- oh look, and "anywhere that" -- is a quantifier, like "every". It's the difference between "I want to go somewhere warm" and "I want to go anywhere it's warm": one is some indefinite place, the other ranges over all such places. The dialectal use of "anymore" must be a reinterpretation of some aspect of this -- non-real, or quantified, or something, but I couldn't see what was the bit of grammar or meaning that was actually doing it.
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#117401 - 12/10/03 02:39 AM Re: anymore
dxb Pooh-Bah Registered: 03/06/02 Posts: 1692 Loc: UK	"It's too cold for me anymore" I haven't heard 'anymore' used in that way on this side of the pond. It seems as though it is perhaps being used in place of 'nowadays'.
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#117402 - 12/10/03 08:49 AM Re: anymore
birdfeed member Registered: 11/19/02 Posts: 180 Loc: Atlanta, GA	"I haven't heard 'anymore' used in that way on this side of the pond. It seems as though it is perhaps being used in place of 'nowadays'." Yes, that's how I've heard my older relatives use it. As kind of a synonym for "these days"
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#117403 - 12/10/03 09:16 AM Re: anymore
Jackie Carpal Tunnel Registered: 03/15/00 Posts: 11580 Loc: Louisville, Kentucky	Interesting, what Gurunet says (from AHD). I have to say, I hadn't realized it was alloneword. an·y·more (ĕn'ē-môr', -mōr') adv. 1. a. Any longer; at the present: Do they make this model anymore? b. From now on: We promised not to quarrel anymore. Chiefly Midland U.S. Nowadays. REGIONAL NOTE In standard American English the word anymore is often found in negative sentences: They don't live here anymore. But anymore is widely used in regional American English in positive sentences with the meaning “nowadays”: “We use a gas stove anymore” (Oklahoma informant in DARE). Its use, which appears to be spreading, is centered in the South Midland and Midwestern states, as well as in the Western states that received settlers from those areas. The earliest recorded examples are from Northern Ireland, where the positive use of anymore still occurs. For reasons lost in the mists of time, I have the idea that saying any longer is the grammatically correct version.
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#117404 - 12/10/03 09:50 AM Re: anymore
RhubarbCommando Pooh-Bah Registered: 08/23/00 Posts: 2204	To me, there seems to be a subtle difference between 'anymore' and 'any more.' The former has a negative connotation, as debated above, but the latter is more universal. I would say "I have not found any more mushrooms." but, "I don't seem to be able to find mushrooms anymore."(especially if I was speaking toConnie!) I would never say, "Have you got anymore mushrooms." - it would be, "Have you got any more mushrooms." Does this obscure things a little better?
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