positive "anymore"

[Alice Faber]

Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 3:21 PM -0400 10/23/00, Alice Faber wrote:
>>Laurence Horn said:
>>>
>>>"A-nuddah agita special.  Da Knickuhbockuhs are a different team from
>>>quawta to quawta anymaw"
>>
>>There's an older pocket (relic?) of positive anymore in the Hudson
>>Valley. My parents live in Columbia County (east side of Hudson, c.
>>100 miles north of New York City), and friends of theirs who've lived
>>their entire lives in the area use it.
>>
>>And, while I love the Benigno example, I don't think you can
>>attribute that to New York or even to a Hudson Valley relic area;
>>remember that Benigno got his start on WFAN as regular caller "Joe
>>from Saddle River" (northern New Jersey, pretty far west of any
>>Hudson Valley dialect area, as I recall).
>>
>Right, but Joe from Saddle River (who won a contest several years ago
>against a few other regular callers vying for a  stint as host on the
>station, which he retains to this day) definitely has all the traits
>of New York English, as I tried to indicate with my transcription,
>ranging from the strongly non-rhotic character and the vowel
>phonology to the lexicon (that "agita", for example, which was
>discussed in that excerpt from Evan Morris that Barry posted earlier
>today).  I don't think there's a connection with a Hudson Valley
>relic area; I would bet that Benigno, even if he does currently hail
>from Saddle River, is situated very much within most of the New York
>City isoglosses, whence the apparent anomaly of the pos. anymore.

It occurs to me also that positive anymore is, well, not uncommon in
urban Philadelphia. My ex-husband, born and raised in Philadelphia,
worked very hard in his childhood to eradicate all traces of lower
middle class Philadelphia from his speech. However, he didn't realize
until he was in his late 20s that positive anymore is not "standard
English", and was quite dismayed to realize that he was using
non-standard syntax. For what it's worth also, I've heard other
traces of Philadelphia influence in NY sports-radio-speak (and not
from the hosts who've alternated between working for NY and
Philadelphia stations!). In particular, one of Mike and the Mad Dog
(to me, they *are* interchangeable, but they are both, as far as I
know natives of the NY metropolitan area) regularly hypercorrects the
vowel in FURry to FERry (e.g. "worry" [wEriy]). I've heard similar
hypercorrections on Philadelphia all-news stations (e.g., "monitEring
the situation in Haiti"). I know Labov says that this near merger of
ER-UR doesn't extend even into the Philadelphia suburbs, but I've
heard reliable anecdotal reports from south Jersey (from people a
generation older than me) suggesting that it may not be so tightly
restricted.

Alice
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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                                     fax (203) 865-8963