Grammar Crab says: "Anymore" refers to something that no longer exists.

[RadiationTherapy]

It does not refer to something that has recently come into existence. For example:

Martha exclaimed, "All they carry is this cheap 1-ply toilet paper anymore! Now I have to keep my fingernails trimmed short!

Martha exclaimed, "They don't carry the good 2 ply toilet paper anymore! Now I have to keep my fingernails trimmed short!

I really want to rant and pant over this, but I am back from a 12 day stay-at-home-vacation-while-the-six-year-old-is-in-Mass-with-the-Ps and am incredibly and enviously calm and relaxed.

Aahhhhhhhhhh.

C'mon.

Fuckin guy?

[redqueen]

1. Please do "less" vs. "fewer" next time.

:)

[RadiationTherapy]

2. I'll take that as a compliment, but I am not sure I know that rule.

Is it:

fewer refers to something composed of individual units such as "fewer troops in Iraq"

less refers to some total quantity of a thing? "I am drinking a bit less wine this morning because I am at work."

Something like that?

[redqueen]

3. Precisely!

So you can see how annoying those "10 items or less" signs are at checkout counters. x(

[WCGreen]

4. Thanks for clearing that up....

I always thought if you had 10 items, you had to take Les Nessmin home. So I was always careful to have only 9 or 11 items.

[RadiationTherapy]

5. But I can also hear how "10 items or fewer" doesn't roll and ring quite right. nt

[Goblinmonger]

6. It is about whether you can "count" the items.

Fewer means you can count it.
Less means you can't.

10 items or fewer check out lane (my local grocery store just changed their sign!!!)
I would like less mashed potatoes than he has.

[RebelOne]

7. According to my grammar style manual:

Fewer (or few) stresses number, and less stresses degree or quantity. Use fewer for plural nouns and individual items that can be counted, less for singular nouns and a bulk, amount, sum, period of time or idea that is measured in other ways. Examples: Fewer than 10 applicants called. I had less than $50 in my pocket. Fewer dollars, less money, less food, fewer calories.

[RadiationTherapy]

8. OOOKAAAAYYYY...can we talk about "anymore" now???

kidding. The fewer/less info is just as interesting.

[RadiationTherapy]

25. Buuuuuuuurrrrrrp.

[RadiationTherapy]

9. Ok. I see. We can just pretend this problem doesn't exist.

People all think they know everything anymore!

[skygazer]

10. It's also two words

Any more. That is all.

[Oeditpus Rex]

11. That refers to quantity

"They don't carry two-ply toilet paper anymore!" Grizelda said. "Isn't there any more of the good stuff?"

[skygazer]

12. That Grizelda is obsessed about toilet paper

It's bleedin' weird.

[Oeditpus Rex]

13. You can't begrudge her style, your Auntie Grizelda

She couldn't budge a smile and do it for free.



:)

:hi:

[RadiationTherapy]

14. Nope. nt

[ForrestGump]

15. Yeah!

Well, I believe so, anyway. Sometimes it comes as a surprise to find that you've been wrong all along, and I'm always open to that possibility (or likelihood) with the English language.

"All right" is another one: "alright" is not a word, and neither is "alot."

On the other hand, for pretty much every year of my post-alphabet-learning life up 'til the last few I totally avoided "cannot" and considered it just another common booboo when, in fact, it's perhaps the more correct (less fewer wrong, anyway) choice, though at least there's always the "can't" contraction option for the terminally uncertain.

Use of "any more" as detailed in this thread always puzzled me, as does the word "from" used in contexts such as "I don't know from..." and the like. I always put the latter down to some kind of regional idiom and, though it sounds odd to me, wouldn't have a clue whether it's 'correct' or not. Besides, the best efforts of Strunk and White and various style manuals notwithstanding, it seems like dictionaries add misuses so quickly these days that just about everything that was once considered wrong or clumsy has now become an acceptable word or usage.





Ooo...case in point:

http://alt-usage-english.org/anymore.html

http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000187.htm

Just looked it up, and it appears we're wrong. And here I am, ironically enough, a person who favors compound words in English over the more entrenched non-compound (verily, 'noncompound,' even!) equivalents. How gauche. :D

And here's the story of "cannot," making it entirely clear (well, actually, anything BUT) why I was so confused and why both versions are 'correct':

http://alexfiles.com/cannot.shtml

English sucks.

I don't know from...um...whatever...(I really have no idea how to proceed with this construction).

[skygazer]

16. Let's make our own rules, dammit!

I don't like "anymore." Looks wrong and I prefer the sound of "any more." Any more crap from others and I cannot be held responsible for the consequences. :P

[ForrestGump]

17. I don't like it, either

And it just looked at me funny. Funnily. In a way that was funny. :P

[ForrestGump]

18. P.S.:

"Dammit" is so much better than what the narrow-minded capitalist running-dog pig-dog lackey oppressors of the proletariat deem correct, "damn it" or the odd-looking and just plain wrong "damnit," darn it. And that's all I have to say about that.

[RadiationTherapy]

19. Grammar Crab says: "Anymore" refers to something that no longer exists.

Stop fighting it. You know it's true!

[crimsonblue]

20. who cares

the grammar nazis need to go away

[RadiationTherapy]

21. BOOORRRRRING.

Bzzzzzzzzt.

[Eurobabe]

22. I care! It's no wonder some English speakers sound so STOOPID!

I vote the grammar crab stays. So there.

[Karenina]

23. I also!

oder ich auch. YMMV! ;-)

[Eurobabe]

24. Until I studied German, I never appreciated grammar

But now I love relative pronouns, identifying dangling participles and split infinitives, reveling in modal auxilliary verbs. :rofl: