The Positive Anymore

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Dino and I’m from Manhattan, New York.

Hello, Dino. Welcome.

Hi, Dino.

Well, I had a question about the use of the word anymore.

I heard a couple of my friends from the D.C. area using the word anymore in a way that sounded kind of weird to me.

I can see where they’re coming from in the sense that it would be correct.

It just sounded funny and I wanted to know maybe if that’s a regional thing.

Oh, yeah, sure. Do tell.

Well, he’ll say something like, now when you go get something professionally framed, it costs like 60, 70 bucks anymore.

And it just sounded odd to me.

I don’t know.

Have you ever heard them start a sentence with that?

Like, anymore, these things cost a lot of money.

No, I have not.

But it usually ends up at the tail end of the sentence.

And it ends up in a, like, I don’t know why it sounds funny to me.

I just know that it sounds funny.

Like I can’t put my finger on it.

Right.

It’s called a positive anymore as opposed to a negative anymore.

A negative anymore is when you say something like, we don’t go to that park anymore.

Yeah.

And so the positive anymore is just basically an extension of the negative.

It suggests a changing condition, an onset of something new that is going to continue.

It’s not universally used that way, but generally.

So anymore the weather is colder means that from here on out the weather has pretty much been colder.

And just the same, as you say, we don’t go to that park anymore is an ongoing condition of something new that’s negative.

There’s some stigma with that, though, isn’t there, Grant?

With the positive anymore?

Yeah.

Yeah, because it’s like all dialect features.

They tend to trigger something in your brain.

We’re ants, basically.

And when two different ant species come together, right, they recognize each other as outsiders.

And it works the same way with language.

I mean, this is the basic principle of why languages are cohesive,

Is because we try to speak like the people who are like us,

And when somebody doesn’t speak like us,

Then we therefore assume that they are not like us at all.

That’s right.

There’s something jarring.

Yeah, there’s something jarring.

So we can’t help but to feel a little triggered by that, right?

Yeah, pick up those linguistic pheromones.

Fortunately, I didn’t laugh at him or call him out on it.

I just kind of filed it away in the back of my brain.

It’s something less than fight or flight,

But we do have a reaction where we hear language that we recognize as being something other than our own.

Nicely put.

So you didn’t call him out on it, you just filed it away to call us?

Well, exactly. I mean, who else would I call?

Who else?

Don’t call him out, just call you guys.

That’s right.

So this feature, the positive anymore, is pretty much spread throughout the United States,

Except in the very far northeast and in the south.

But throughout the rest of the country, it’s pretty standard.

Now, the South comes with a little bit of a caveat in the hedge there because you will find it there,

Just not with the frequency and intensity that you find it elsewhere.

For example, my father, who speaks a variety of Southern English that’s related to Arkansas English,

He uses it all the time.

I just recently had a trip back to see him, and I was amazed how often it came out of his mouth.

Oh, really?

I don’t use it at all.

I never heard it because I grew up in Miami in South Florida.

Yeah, very interesting.

Miami’s got its own little language thing going, though.

But if you were in the panhandle, you might have encountered it more often,

But not as often as you would if you were in North Carolina.

Right.

Good point.

So it’s really interesting.

The positive anymore is a strong feature of the American dialect.

It is not a standard feature of it.

It does occasionally occur among the Scots and the Irish that are still in the old world,

But it’s not frequent there either.

I like it.

Who knew?

So Dino, I hope I’ve helped and haven’t bored.

You, no, no, no, never boring, never boring.

At least one of the two I’ll take.

I would say that you’re fascinating anymore.

Whoa, fascinating anymore.

These days.

Nice, nice.

I’m kidding, I’m kidding.

So it’s not wrong, it’s actually standard English.

No, but it’s not the kind of thing that you would use in a commencement speech that you were giving,

Or if you were speaking to the Pope, the Queen, or the President,

And probably not if you were applying for a bank loan.

All right, well, thank you so much.

Thanks, Dino.

Thanks, Dino. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye, take care.

Well, Dino had a great question about something he noticed in someone else’s speech,

And he did what I always suggest, which he acted like a field researcher and said,

I’m not going to call it wrong.

I’m going to find out more about it.

Right on.

If you want to find out more about something that someone else said,

Give us a call, 877-929-9673,

Or send in an email to words@waywordradio.org.