positive "anymore" trivia

[Laurence Horn]

>Just to be clear, it's the fronting of 'anymore' that's marking this
>as non-standard since the verb is negative, right? As a positive
>anymore user myself, my intuitions are messed up on this count.

Yes, an "anymore" outside the scope of the negation (as here)
patterns with "anymore" in positive contexts.  "It doesn't matter
who's right or wrong anymore" or "It doesn't matter anymore who's
right or wrong" will both be good for all speakers, even those of
Frank Sinatra's or Elton John's dialects.

larry

>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Laurence Horn
>Sent: Mon 3/20/2006 7:58 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject:      positive "anymore" trivia
>
>So I was listening to a Rita Coolidge CD called "Out of the Blues",
>mostly standards like "Mean to Me", "Am I Blue?", "Stormy Monday",
>"Bring It On Home to Me", "The Man I Love", and so on, when a song
>came on that I wasn't familiar with, which begins
>
>Anymore it doesn't matter who's right or wrong.
>We've been injurin' each other much too long.
>And it's too late to try to save what might have been.
>It's over; nobody wins.
>
>This struck me as very peculiar, almost a register clash in the
>context, but I see now that unlike the other selections written by
>Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Ira Gershwin, et al. this was penned by Kris
>Kristofferson (not surprising in itself, since I still think of Rita
>Coolidge in the context of /Kris Kristofferson and ____).  So
>checking his bio, he was born in rural Texas and moved around a lot
>before settling in Nashville, so he must have come by his positive
>"anymore" honestly enough.  Still, I wonder what the various artists
>who have covered the song, apparently ranging from Sinatra to Elton
>John, have thought about that first line...
>
>larry
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org