Query re ANYMORE

[Beverly Flanigan]

Yes, your last comment is interesting--in particular, why some
Scots-Irish-App. usages went all the way west and others stayed in the more
insular South Midland/Appal. area east of the Mississippi.  But--I talked
to a linguist from Northern Ireland recently who said that Ulster Scots
(=Scots Irish) does NOT have "positive anymore"; it only has the negative
form.  I don't know the origin of "positive anymore"--anyone?

At 05:16 PM 4/13/01 -0400, you wrote:
>I wasn't trying to make the claim that the usage is uniquely
>Pittsburghese.  I do find it interesting that the local popular media
>have latched on to some of these features, and especially that this one
>appears in one of the earlier examples of public discourse about the
>"local dialect" (the articles I am working with go back to the early
>1950s, but really ramp up in frequency during the '70s).  I'm also
>interested in how some of these Appalachian/Scots features grew legs
>while others didn't.
>
>  - Drew
>
>Beverly Flanigan wrote:
> >
> > Once again, I want to note that Pittsburgh ain't alone in the use of
> > "positive anymore"!  It's general throughout the South (and perhaps North)
> > Midland.  Most interestingly, I also heard it twice from my aging aunt (80)
> > and uncle (72) in California last year.  Since they grew up in Minnesota,
> > where we don't use it (or at least didn't when I lived there), these two
> > acquired it in California as full in-migrant adults (25-35 when they moved
> > out there).  So the form has clearly spread westward, far beyond
> > Pittsburgh, and even beyond Missouri (I heard it earlier from students from
> > Nebraska and Colorado).  There are more recent studies of this usage too,
> > by Tom Murray among others.
> >
> > At 01:55 PM 4/13/01 -0400, you wrote:
> > >"Anymore" in an affirmative sense as "again" or "nowadays" is cited in
> > >at least two news/feature articles on Pittsburgh speech culled from
> > >local publications.  George Swetnam, "Pittsburgh Patois", Pittsburgh
> > >Press, 9-Sep-1959, p. 4 of Sunday Family insert, uses "You're getting
> > >fat, any more" as an example (he compares it to the use of the word
> > >"schon" in German).
> > >
> > >Si Bloom, "Every One Talks Funny But Us", The Pittsburgher, v.1, n.3,
> > >Aug. 1977 also comments on the positive use of anymore as a feature of
> > >local speech (as opposed to the interrogative and negative usage in
> > >"accent-battered New York City").
> > >
> > >A more scholarly citation:  Youmans, Gilbert, "Any More on Anymore?:
> > >Evidence from a Missouri Dialect Survey", American Speech, 1986, 61, 1,
> > >spring, 61-75 discusses the the positive and negative uses of "anymore"
> > >in data collected from Missouri college students' speech.
> > >


_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm