the curious grammar of Ohio

[sagehen]

Peter A. McGraw  writes:

>California?  Wow!
>
>There was a discussion of positive "anymore" on this list a long time ago,
>but actually I wonder if that terminology captures what's distinctive about
>the usage.  I think I picked up positive "anymore" in college in Ohio.
>I've used it comfortably ever since, and I don't feel particularly
>outlandish using it here in the Northwest.  What I never picked up, and
>what still sounds regional to me, is sentence-initial "anymore," whether
>positive or negative.   Neither "Anymore, I always use positive 'anymore,'"
>nor "Anymore, I never use positive 'anymore'" seems natural to me, but I
>think both would be natural to speakers in the "homeland" of this usage.
>
>Peter
>
>--On Wednesday, October 27, 2004 5:04 PM -0400 Beverly Flanigan
><flanigan at OHIOU.EDU> wrote:
>
>> Good one!  I have yet to see positive "anymore" in fiction (it's not
>> Appalachian but is common in Midland Ohio and westward, all the way to
>> California now, I believe), but if the novel is really set in Ohio, I may
>> see it.  Two of my OU colleagues use it frequently.
>>
>> At 04:35 PM 10/27/2004, you wrote:
>>> Anymore, I often wonder about that curious Ohio grammar, too.
>>>
>>> Peter Mc.
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was startled by the use of positive "anymore" when I first heard it in
1947  in Washington state (Olympic peninsula).  I had never encountered it
among the people I grew up with in eastern Nebraska and the Chicago North
Shore.  It sounded very odd to me.  I even twitted my older brother a
couple of years ago, when I found him using it, with having  gone native
after living for the past 40-50 years in Portland and other places in the
northwest.
Now I think it may have migrated with the shifts in population during and
after WWII to the northwest......?
A. Murie