Interesting conversation. My contribution may be too factual for a borderline tongue-in-cheek thread, but I'll offer it anyway.
Positive versus Negative:
Adding to TMG51's comment, when you're talking about English grammar, positive and negative have nothing to do with whether you think it's a good thing or a bad thing or beneficial or detrimental. In grammar, a negative sentence is one that has some form of the word "no" (not) in it. That is what is meant by negation. Positive sentences lack that negation.
Anymore - Personal Perspective
While I'm mostly on the paint chip side, the nicest thing I can say about "Anymore as positive" is that it's indicative of sloppy, lazy, or misinformed English, which then becomes standard, at least in an area or subpopulation. See below.
Anymore - Professional Perspective
Within the English teaching field, there are two basic schools of thought regarding how to look at grammar and grammar's role within a language.
The first is called Prescriptive. In short, it means that the rules of grammar should be set out in advance, everyone should learn them, and then follow them. To get the right frame of mind, think "medical prescription". In that case, there's not much choice. You just get the doctor's written order, go get the pills, and take them in the way that the doctor told you to take them.
The second view is called Descriptive. According to this school of thought, it is not the job of grammar to tell you how to speak or write. It is the job of grammar to pay careful attention to the way people use a language, and then try to describe that usage.
The traditional view has always been prescriptive. However, in the last couple of decades, the descriptive view has become more common, and might even be considered dominant.
What's my point?
Those two views of grammar are very different, and they lead to vastly different results. I think there is a role for both prescriptive and descriptive grammar. It is a matter of proportion.
If you have 80% prescriptive and 20% descriptive, then the language maintains its standards, it has some flexibility to adopt new developments, and most people can speak what is considered the proper language. However, when that ratio gets reversed, and you end up with 20% prescriptive and 80% descriptive -- a situation we're headed toward in English -- the quality of the language suffers greatly. And that just makes sense, because then the job of grammar is as a passive observer only of what anybody feels like saying. Sort of like what would happen if you let the students in a daycare manage themselves.
The most significant problem comes from the facts that the younger generations have adopted the descriptive method, and they have moved into professional positions in teaching, journalism, and in the management and caretaking of dictionaries. As a result, all kinds of crazy things have entered the language. The difference is that now those things are in the language formally no matter if they are right or wrong.
One small example is the difference between the words regardless and irregardless. The first is an actual word, and the second is a bastardization that actually means the opposite of what it's supposed to mean, but the descriptive people stuck it in the dictionary anyway because there weren't any grown-ups left to say "No, that's wrong."
And I ain't got nothing to say about that no more.
Tom
Positive versus Negative:
Adding to TMG51's comment, when you're talking about English grammar, positive and negative have nothing to do with whether you think it's a good thing or a bad thing or beneficial or detrimental. In grammar, a negative sentence is one that has some form of the word "no" (not) in it. That is what is meant by negation. Positive sentences lack that negation.
Anymore - Personal Perspective
While I'm mostly on the paint chip side, the nicest thing I can say about "Anymore as positive" is that it's indicative of sloppy, lazy, or misinformed English, which then becomes standard, at least in an area or subpopulation. See below.
Anymore - Professional Perspective
Within the English teaching field, there are two basic schools of thought regarding how to look at grammar and grammar's role within a language.
The first is called Prescriptive. In short, it means that the rules of grammar should be set out in advance, everyone should learn them, and then follow them. To get the right frame of mind, think "medical prescription". In that case, there's not much choice. You just get the doctor's written order, go get the pills, and take them in the way that the doctor told you to take them.
The second view is called Descriptive. According to this school of thought, it is not the job of grammar to tell you how to speak or write. It is the job of grammar to pay careful attention to the way people use a language, and then try to describe that usage.
The traditional view has always been prescriptive. However, in the last couple of decades, the descriptive view has become more common, and might even be considered dominant.
What's my point?
Those two views of grammar are very different, and they lead to vastly different results. I think there is a role for both prescriptive and descriptive grammar. It is a matter of proportion.
If you have 80% prescriptive and 20% descriptive, then the language maintains its standards, it has some flexibility to adopt new developments, and most people can speak what is considered the proper language. However, when that ratio gets reversed, and you end up with 20% prescriptive and 80% descriptive -- a situation we're headed toward in English -- the quality of the language suffers greatly. And that just makes sense, because then the job of grammar is as a passive observer only of what anybody feels like saying. Sort of like what would happen if you let the students in a daycare manage themselves.
The most significant problem comes from the facts that the younger generations have adopted the descriptive method, and they have moved into professional positions in teaching, journalism, and in the management and caretaking of dictionaries. As a result, all kinds of crazy things have entered the language. The difference is that now those things are in the language formally no matter if they are right or wrong.
One small example is the difference between the words regardless and irregardless. The first is an actual word, and the second is a bastardization that actually means the opposite of what it's supposed to mean, but the descriptive people stuck it in the dictionary anyway because there weren't any grown-ups left to say "No, that's wrong."
And I ain't got nothing to say about that no more.
Tom
