I guess this is my curse for living in the midwest, but I hadn't noticed this until the past year or so. I saw someone do this on TFP today (not the first time) and I felt compelled to say something.
The word "anymore" means "any longer." It's a rather simple word, without too many uses, but somehow it is starting to be used incorrectly! I don't want to single out the person on TFP who reminded me of this today, but their post led me to look "anymore" up in the dictionary, just to be absolutely positive. I was shocked to find out that the American Heritage Dictionary lists the improper use as a dialectal!! I'm sorry, it's not a dialect, it's just
wrong.
Quote:
an·y·more
adv.
- Any longer; at the present: Do they make this model anymore?
- From now on: We promised not to quarrel anymore.
- Chiefly Midland U.S. Nowadays.
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.
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Have you heard "anymore" used this way? Does it grate on your ears the way it hurts mine? It's quickly becoming more frustrating to me than "irregardless."
Do you use "anymore" in this way? Have you always done so, or is this something that you've recently started doing?
Don't the sentences just sound wrong to you when you use it that way???? ![Stick Out Tongue](/tfp/images/smilies/tongue.gif)
(Please take that with the intended humor, even if I do think you're wrong
![Wink](/tfp/images/smilies/wink.gif)
)