Date: Fri, 31 Mar 1995 09:19:52 -0600

From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU

Subject: Positive Anymore



Although I still remember the first time I heard positive "anymore" and

remember wondering why the person who used it was talking in such a strange

way, I had thought since then (mid '60s) that it was on the increase and

that most people had at least heard it by now. They haven't. The topic

arose in my sociolinguistics class this morning, and I was surprised that

approximately 50% of the students had never heard it at all (none of my

students admitted to ever having used it). One student couldn't decide

whether she had or hadn't heard it from her husband, who "is from New

York and says all kinds of strange things." Several students didn't

understand what "anymore" meant in the example sentence I gave them.

They all understood what "I'm not reading many novels anymore" meant but

said that "I'm reading lots of novels anymore" didn't make any sense.

Since my dialect doesn't include positive anymore, I was afraid my example

might be wrong, so I had them look at the examples on p. 296 of Chaika.

They found it funny that she uses asterisks by the double modals on p. 297

(except for the first sentence, which she obviously made an error in --

"can might" for "might can") but that she doesn't put asterisks by

sentences like "Things are getting busier for me anymore." Almost all

of my students would call that sentence non-English but would call "You

might could see him" normal.

--Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)