A positive anymore?

[Laurence Horn]

>Has Benigno lived in other regions as well as New York?  Positive 'anymore'
>is spreading, but it isn't generally in New York State yet, is it?

No.  When he was a fan who used to call in a lot before winning a
competition to become a host, originally overnight and now
10:00a.m.-1:00p.m. ("midday" as opposed to "drive time"), he was "Joe
from Saddle River", that being in northern New Jersey, also not at
all pos. "anymore" country.  I haven't heard anyone else with this
combination of dialect features, but Joe does testify to this spread.

LH

>  A
>friend of mine from eastern Iowa (faculty brat from U of Iowa) now uses the
>structure sometimes, much to my surprise; she's been teaching at Ohio U for
>30 years though, and it's very common in much of Ohio (North Midland
>creeping northward and southward, though not traditionally South
>Midland).  It's also moving into northern Iowa and Minnesota; my
>great-nieces have it, but not my siblings and me.  Since this friend is
>68-ish and now calls Detroit home, I take note of it when she uses it.  And
>of course it came over from various English and Irish usage areas.
>
>At 01:43 PM 10/18/2006, you wrote:
>>At 5:12 PM -0400 10/17/06, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>>From a review of a shareware app:
>>>
>>>[T]his is an update from a version 1 to a version 2, yet the
>>>developers are not charging for it! That's getting to be pretty rare,
>>>_anymore_.
>>>
>>>There's a certain degree of semantic negation implied in "rare," so
>>>I'm not sure that the example counts.
>>>
>>>-Wilson
>>
>>It counts, and this would be impossible for pure non-pos-"anymore"
>>speakers given the syntactic frame (vs. "It's pretty rare that you'd
>>see that sort of thing anymore"), but as you say the "rare" helps;
>>the same example with "pretty frequent anymore" would be somewhat
>>less likely, as I read you as suggesting.  I just heard my favorite
>>pos-"anymore" speaker, Joe Benigno of WFAN whose echt-Noo-Yawkuh
>>speech pattern clashes so vividly with those positive "anymore"s he's
>>so fond of, produce another one.  Talking about not being able to
>>listen to the post-season games on the radio with the favored
>>announcers while watching the TV feed with the sound turned down, he
>>mentioned the several seconds TV delay that has rendered this
>>practice obsolete, and complained,
>>
>>"That's the way it is anymore".
>>
>>(This is the same guy who I have on tape saying "Another agita
>>special.  The Knicks are a different team from kwawduh duh kwawduh
>>anymaw!")
>>
>>LH
>>
>>P.S. Note that these examples, while unlicensed by negation, do have
>>the negative affect you often find, as e.g. in the famous D. H.
>>Lawrence line "Suffering bores me any more".
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
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>
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