"anymore" = "not previously but now"

[Wilson Gray]

Where, exactly, is Midlands speech located? As a person whose academic
knowledge of the dialectology of the U.S. is best described as
"trivial" (my college linguistics prof thought that we would be more
open-minded and less opinionated WRT the "proper" linguistic forms, if
we studied the dialectology of the Bantu language family, instead), it
seems to me that the term, "Midlands," in view of its "obvious"
meaning, *ought* to exclude the speech-area extending from Scranton,
PA to, but probably not including, Albany, NY.

I've googled the term, of course, but the name of my hometown, Saint
Louis, had its own little section. So, I read that part - FWIW, I
consider it to be accurate - and skimmed the rest, without finding any
clear definition of "Midlands" that would exclude NE PA.

BTW, _youse_ is alive and well among ordinary folk, around these
parts. E.g., waitstaff routinely ask, "What'll yooz ( _oo_ as in
"book") have?" or "How may we serve yooz?" There appears to be a class
distinction, since my wife never uses this form and considers it
"uneducated."

-Wilson

On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 3:35 PM, Tony Au <todeau at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tony Au <todeau at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "anymore" = "not previously but now"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This seems to be an instance of the positive anymore ("anymore" =
> "nowadays") that you can find in Midlands speech: "We always eat lunch at
> noon anymore," etc.
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 2:47 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> Subject:      "anymore" = "not previously but now"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  From an email message:
>>
>> "Many scholarly publishers anymore send the author to the indexer
>> directly anyway, but for those who don't, I will ask if I feel I need
>> clarification."
>>
>> Joel
>>
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--
-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.
–Mark Twain

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