At 6:19 PM 3/24/97 -0500, EDWARD VAVRA wrote: >---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- >Sender: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar > <[log in to unmask]> >Poster: EDWARD VAVRA <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Any more I make a lot of errors >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > A friend recently objected to my use of "anymore" in the >following: "If a student hands in a paper anymore, he might >have gotten it off the Internet." > >I don't know how the word (two words?) is/are spelled. I >would not normally use the word(s) in writing, but since he >said it is an error, I promised I would post it here to see what >ya'll have to say about it. All I know is that it seems perfectly >acceptable to me. Hi Ed: Your use of anymore to mean nowadays (as Bill Murdick mentioned) is certainly not a "mistake"; however, we can say that it's not a part of standard written English, as is true of many spoken forms. Here in Western PA we often hear "my hair needs washed"--right? The standard (or prestige dialect) use of "anymore" is used with negative sentences: I don't make a lot of errors anymore." My Dictionary of English Usage identifies your positive use of it as possibly having come to this country by way of Scotch-Irish immigrants in the 18th century--apparently the positive "anymore" is, or was, common in parts of Ireland. I once used a positive "any" in my ESL class, and my students corrected me. The any/some distinction is taught to nonnative speakers as a positive/negative distinction: I want some; I don't want any. The same applies to some of the expanded some/any words, like anymore: someone/anyone (I don't see anyone; I see someone), something/anything, etc. Your usage is fairly common in speech, Ed. It's certainly not a grammatical error. Martha Kolln