the curious grammar of Ohio

[Wilson Gray]

If memory serves - and it probably doesn't - Labov(?) collected an
example of positive anymore in Kansas(?) from back in the '60's. It
went something like this.

Q. Do you find anything wrong with the following sentence?

      "Cigarettes are really expensive, anymore."

A. Yes.

Q. What?

A. Cigarettes aren't expensive. They're cheap.

-Wilson Gray


On Oct 28, 2004, at 2:37 PM, Matthew Gordon wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Matthew Gordon <gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: the curious grammar of Ohio
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Positive anymore (including the sentence initial uses) is normal to
> me, and
> I am a 30-something native of eastern Nebraska. It apparently has
> spread
> there too and is now quite common.
> I've also heard it from some Chicagoans though it's much less common
> there.
>
>
> On 10/28/04 1:13 PM, "sagehen" <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM> wrote:
>
>>  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> 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
>