That might actually be worth watching.
<As Bush puts his speech down on the lectern, the camera zooms in on the panel of judges>
Randy Jackson
Paula Abdul
Simon Powell
Sorry Gest I wasn’t ignoring you. Was this directed at me? I suppose it was. The use of the word anymore instead or in place of now. Is it common? It is where I live. Is it limited to Texas? I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so. Why anymore rather than now. Saying that I do or don’t do something now doesn’t necessarily mean that I did before. Whereas, anymore implies that I no longer do something that I used to.
ie: I don’t masturbate anymore.
or I don’t masturbate now.
The first example implies that I no longer gratify myself sexually BUT I used to AND it even implies that I won’t be doing it in the future either.
The second example only says that I’m not jerking off at this moment. It doesn’t actually imply anything in regard to the past or the future.
Now the fact or fiction of these two statements is irrelevant. For all you know I could be typing with one hand as we speak. ahem :rolleyes:
I hope that was clear. I think I’ll go now.
That’d been a good place for anymore.
Spiny Norman, that was superb!
t-keela, it was partly directed at you but also at Mac Guffin. Hence they question about usage being limited to Texas as they don’t have their location listed as you do. I understand the usage as you described it. In fact, that is just the standard use for anymore. Rather, I was talking about the way you used it in the fine print in one of your posts. I would have put it down to a typo if I hadn’t seen Mac Guffin do the same but in both posts, it definitely seems to be synonymous with now.
I also wanted to know if people who use the word in this way realise it is very non-standard and possibly confusing to foreigners. It seemed to be the only regionalism in your post but Mac Guffin had a couple in his so I’m thinking y’all don’t necessarily assume it’s universally understood.
Damn! I posted this in the wrong thread (Goddam motherfucking Fox Network - or somesuch).
I intended to add the following to this thread.
Back to the OP:
I’m not sure Shrub has ever had a press conference, only scripted speeches. He doesn’t really like talking to us. Why now???
Maybe afterward they’ll cut to Randy, Paula & Simon for their critiques.
Randy: What’s up, Dawg? You feelin’ all right? I don’t know man. It was just OK? Average.
Paula: You picked the totally wrong questions to answer for your range. It was a little pitchy and you looked like you were lip synching.
Simon: Abysmal. Absolutely awful. Even Tony Blair wouldn’t have liked it.
Ryan: If you wan’t to reelect George Bush you have to vote by text messaging the words I’m a Fool and then immediately jumping off a bridge.
heh… I read Mac Guffin’s post and didn’t even notice it. (I noticed your use of the word y’all though.)
I guess it’s kinda like the word “yonder”. I can’t exactly define how far yonder is. It could be near or far…but folks using it seem to understand what is meant when it is used anymore.
Kinda like that, huh?
BTW
Congrats to Diogenes the Cynic for his 8000th post.
sheesh…the guy never shuts up does he. 
Heh. You wouldn’t believe the volume of material that has been generated by undergrad and postgrad linguistics students trying to determine this and similar matters. The distinction between grey and gray and their isoglosses in three different countries consumed my final undergrad year. I’m inexplicably not bored with it yet though.
Hey, thanks for noticing. I should be in five figures by Memorial Day.
I agree. Can you imagine a more bloated windbag?
You’d rather watch reality TV shows rather than watch the president’s press conference, and are too lazy to get a VCR which would solve your little problem, and you call Bush a chimp? Takes one to know one, I guess. I hope to hell for the sake of this country that an import American Idol marathon will be showing on voting day.
Oh great I screwed up my post with two rathers, now they’re gonna let me have it.
What I and others around here (NJ) have noticed is that anymore is now being used when there is no negative: i.e. I don’t do such-and-such anymore vs. Anymore, I do such-and-such. The latter is comparatively new usage. That being said, t-keela nailed it; the use of anymore either with or without a negative carries a connotation of change from previous behavior - rather than now, a better synonym might be nowadays or these days.
And also, Bush sucks. But so does American Idol. The difference is, American Idol just kills an evening. 
Fox blinked.
April 13 presidential press conference forces FOX to shuffle ‘American Idol’ broadcast schedule
Amen!
Waitaminute…
Didn’t one of Dubya’s conferences get trounced by something (American Idol?) last year?
I could swear I remember Matt Drudge making a big deal about Bush getting lower ratings than someone. Maybe Dubya has decided to preemptively attack Simon Cowel?
-Joe, weapons of mass distraction indeed…
Christ, Dio, I’ll tape it for you. Anyway, everyone, Dio used to have a VCR but the Dio girl filled it with cranberry juice or threw it in the toilet or something.
There’s nothing to gain by watching press conferences. It’s all platitudes, dumb jokes, empty compliments and relentless applause and polite laughter. You can scan the transcript in 2 minutes and cull any facts (which are few and far between) and save 58 minutes of mind-numbing idiocy. Is there any reason to watch Bush read a carefully prepared transcript of content-free spin doctoring? I’d rather watch AI, but I’d also rather watch grass grow.
I think that’s the most misplaced optimism I’ve seen since the Detroit Tigers went ahead and played out the last half of last season …
This sounds like the makings of an excellent drinking game! Although a shot for every time he says freedom might result in getting blind drunk. How about a shot every time he mentions 9/11 and Iraq in the same sentence?
heh…you just can’t help yourself anymore, huh?
I recall Tom~ saying something the other day kinda similar. What was it he said?
Dammit, talk about nailing something.