Positive anymore caught in the wild

[Wilson Gray]

You're right , dInIs. There was definitely no comma intonation in her
speech. I put one in only because I learned to punctuate that way in
some otherwise-forgotten English-grammar class of my youth. And, even
so, I didn't put in the comma till after I had studied over it. Well,
as folk say, "You study long, you study wrong." (I've come across this
as "You think long, you think wrong." As Richard Pryor once eloquently
put it: "Unreal. And I ain't going for it.") She definitely said:

I bruise really easily anymore ...

It was the best positive anymore that I ever heard. There was a point
in my life when such a sentence would have been indecipherable.
They're still good for a laugh. Speaking of laughing, it's funny how
the peculiarities of the speech of others sound so strange, whereas
the peculiarities of one's own speech merely sound normal. Cf., e.g.
people who pronounce "ten" as "tan" instead of as "tin."

-Wilson

On 8/12/07, Dennis Preston <preston at msu.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Positive anymore caught in the wild
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wilson,
>
> Are you sure about the comma between "easily" and "anymore"? I
> haven't observed it in such speakers (assuming it means a
> characteristic junctural intonation fact).
>
> dInIs
>
>
> >---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >-----------------------
> >Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> >Subject:      Positive anymore caught in the wild
> >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >Spoken by my wife, a native of the Wyoming Valley of the Suquehanna
> >River in NE PA:
> >
> >_I bruise really easily, anymore_, so I have to be careful about
> >bumping into things.
> >
> >-Wilson
> >--
> >All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> >come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> >-----
> >                                               -Sam'l Clemens
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of English
> Morrill Hall 15-C
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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