Friday, June 10, 2011

Anymore

One of the ways I realize I’m a dork is that I recently had a really long email discussion with a friend about the differences in the way people from the north use the word 'anymore'. I’ve realized for a long time they use it in ways I wouldn’t but I had a hard time pinpointing exactly why, which was a problem because no one I ever mentioned it to had ever noticed it.
I’d never say “I’m so tired anymore” like northern people do.
I’d say “I’m so tired these days” or “I’m so tired lately”, even though the phrase means exactly the same thing if you use ‘anymore’.
We decided that down here ‘anymore’ is used in the negative (“I can’t drink dairy anymore”) but only in combination where ‘anymore’ can be interchangeable with ‘these days’ or ‘at present’ except, as with pretty much every “rule” in English, there are exceptions where this isn’t the case, and in some of the exceptions ‘any longer’ can be interchangeable too but only in cases where ‘any longer’ couldn’t be interchangeable with “from now on”

The point is, my friends from up north need to stop using the word weird so I can devote my time to things less ridiculously trivial.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where in the north? I'm in the north and I've never heard "anymore" used in that way...

ryan said...

i think it may be more of an isolated expression than regional.

Nick said...

I often hear it from friends in NY, NJ, PA and MI. I've never heard it used in the odd way from anyone else.