An ad: _baby_ > _it_

[Wilson Gray]

On Wed, Dec 26, 2012 at 12:23 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> And given the fact that Missouri, the heartland of pos. anymore (cf. Murray 1993), borders Tennessee (a little), it would be surprising if it weren't alive and well in western Tennessee too, and elsewhere in greater Appalachia.  (See refs. at http://microsyntax.sites.yale.edu/positive-anymore.)

_Missouri, the heartland of pos. anymore_

The "Missouri" referred to must be that region which we who dwell in
the Saint Louis island, Jefferson City, and Kansas City disdain as
"*outstate* Missouri," where suddenly, if you're black, you find
yourself back behind the Cotton Curtain. So, naturally, except for
time at Fort Leonard Wood, I've never been in that part of the state.
I last did what might loosely be called "residing" in StL in 1962,
some three dekkids earlier than the relevant paper, and it wasn't
until Ivan became my roommate in 1973 that I was made aware of the
existence of positive anymore. (He told me about it. He didn't use
it.) So, WRT positive anymore, I'm lost in both time and space.

IAC, what *I* found interesting about the cited sentence was that it
was possible to see it as a kind of *negative* anymore, so to speak,
in positive-anymore clothing, as it were, and not its simple
existence.

"Supplies are running low,
since manufacturers are producing less and less of this product,
anymore / since manufacturers aren't producing as much of this
product, anymore."

You can't do that with

"Cigarettes are expensive, anymore."

"Cigarettes aren't expensive, anymore"

isn't a possible paraphrase of that.

"But that's just me," as we say in the 'hood.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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