>> >Ahem: "Anymore" is not the same as "any more." It should only be used in >> >constructions like the following: >> >> > Anymore, everybody is all "like." Nobody goes "as if" any more. >> >> >See? >> >> You would be kidding now, wouldn't you? >> In case you're not, *I* say "I don't do this anymore" but I never use >> "anymore" to mean "these days". > >I'm only kidding slightly. In my example, "anymore" at least means >something different from "any more." In your example it doesn't, it's >just a different spelling -- and incorrect in my view. Spelling is one issue, and authorities agree either spelling (i.e, spaceless "anymore" or spaceful "any more") is officially Correct. Individual preferences differ, as expected. But "incorrect" is not a meaningful term to be used with the spellings. The other issue is the dialectal distinction between Negative Polarity "any( )more", which requires some negative element in a logically commanding position in the phrase or clause (exx: He's not here any more. It's hard to find one anymore. I'm not waiting any more. You won't have __ to kick around anymore.) and the other sense, exemplified above by David, which goes by the name of "positive anymore" in the literature. The best reference is Larry Horn's The Natural History of Negation. The Negative Polarity "anymore" is standard, in either spelling. The positive "anymore" is non-standard, and occurs much more in speech than in writing. In the context of writing, I wouldn't advise using it, precisely because it is nonstandard; hence the issue of its proper spelling need not arise. In any event, it is surely not the case that the spelling difference (which is after all totally inaudible) could differentiate one spoken form from another. And there is no convention that does so, to my knowledge. The distribution of positive "anymore" is only vaguely geographic; mostly it's social dialects -- speech groups not necessarily distinguished by location -- that show it. And just about everybody in the US speaking English has encountered it. It's a natural extension of the meaning of negative "anymore", and it can occur to anybody independently -- it need not have had a single source. Negative "anymore" works like this: there's an implicit presupposed reference to a past situation, and an overt assertion about the present state, and the assertion is to the effect that the present state is different from the past. This is stated by using a negative in the present state ("He's not here any more.") This is only one way of stating such a difference, however, and it's equally plausible that one might want to avoid a negative in stating a difference. Not all differences need to focus on negation. For instance, if we wanted to assert the reference to the past situation instead of presuppose it (and presuppose the present difference instead of asserting it), we could say "He used to be here" instead of "He isn't here any more". Both are true under the same circumstances; but they negate differently. So "anymore" gets generalized to the point where it's equivalent to, but in a different "register" (= social formality level) from "nowadays". Apparently, for users of positive "anymore", "nowadays" doesn't cut it anymore. Anymore, they use "anymore" instead. Or perhaps only in certain speech contexts; the definitive sociolinguistic study remains to be done. But the spelling isn't the issue. -------------------------------------------- -John Lawler More grammar Linguistics Program University of Michigan "..and, who knows? Maybe the horse will sing."