Fwd: Hyphens: Death-Knell. Or Death Knell (NY Times)

[David Bergdahl]

Anymore, I notice "any more" written as a single word when it means
"nowadays" but two words when it means "no longer," a use I find
increasingly rare.  I think "positive anymore" is driving "negative any
more" out of existence.  Or, at least that's what it seems in Athens, which
one daughter once claimed was situated "between Appalachia and the Midwest."
-db

On 10/10/07, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Fwd:  Hyphens:  Death-Knell. Or Death Knell (NY Times)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >From:    Laurence Urdang <urdang at SBCGLOBAL.NET>
> >
> >>In unresponsive reply to Barnhart's note, anymore seems to have
> >>passed, unnoticed but by me, from being two words (and so pronounced
> >>in my speech) to a single word, without a hyphenated transition.
> >
> >I feel like there's a difference between 'anymore' and 'any more', and
> >there are times in my writing when i'm certain that one is right and the
> >other is wrong--but it's a subtle thing, and i'm not certain of what's
> >going on myself, i've just thought it's bizarre of myself in the past.
> >(And, FWIW, i can use 'anymore' positively or negatively, so it's not
> that.)
> >
> There are certainly syntactic differences.  For me, for example:
>
> I didn't eat any more (*anymore) of the raw liver.
> I don't eat raw liver anymore (?any more).
> I wouldn't eat raw liver, any more (*anymore) than I would eat raw
> kidneys.
>
> LH
>
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