Do you use "anymore" to mean "these days"?

Thinking more, it’s the “any” part that seems to not work.

“Are you any good at that?”
“Yes, I am any good at that.”

“I didn’t take any. Did you take any?”
“Yes, I took any.”

“You don’t have any idea!”
“Yes, I have any idea.”

Do those positive “any” sentences make sense to you? If not, can you explain why not?

Never.

Michigan/Illinois. I first heard it in the early '80s (when I was almost 30).

“I don’t do that any more.” = “I don’t do that any longer.”
“It isn’t there any more.” = “It isn’t there any longer.”

“Anymore, it seems like everyone’s glued to their phones.” = “Any longer, it seems like everyone’s glued to their phone.” = Huh???

I’m from Europe and learned my English in England and Ireland. I’ve never heard it used in the positive. Today is the first time ever. If someone had used it in this way before today I think I wouldn’t even have understood what they meant.

nm

It’s not just you. Even for native speakers, if you’re unfamiliar with this idiomatic usage, it’s confusing. The first few times I heard it (or rather probably read it here), my assumption was that I either misheard the sentence (and missed the negative) or that the negative was accidentally omitted from typing quickly (I myself have a habit of dropping words sometimes when I my mind gets ahead of my fingers while typing, so I assumed it was just this phenomenon.) So, yeah, this led me to understand the sentence as exactly opposite of what was intended. It was only after being exposed to it several times that I realized “anymore” is used by some speakers to simply mean “nowadays” in both positive and negative constructions. Same with my initial encounters of constructions like “needs washed.” At first, I thought I just missed the “to be,” but only after a few go-rounds I understood that was an idiomatic construction.

Another one that kind of got to me, and I assume it’s actually a very standard usage, is starting sentences with the phrase “as well.” I first encountered this while working for some attorneys. In my dialect, I’ve never heard anyone start a sentence with “as well” – it’s always used in the middle or at the end. For example: “Bob works full-time in construction. As well, he volunteers for the local fire department on the weekends.” Or something like that. In my dialect, we would either use “also” for the “as well” or append it at the end of the second sentence, but not start a sentence with it.

“Positive Anymore” ~from my blog

(And as yet another aside, my mother-in-law, who is from the Eau Claire area of Wisconsin, uses the word “yet” where I would normally use “still.” It took me a few weeks to get used to it, as she’s been spending a lot of time here over the last year because of our new baby. So, she would say things like “The baby is hungry yet” to indicate the baby is still hungry. From what I gather, this is a Wisconsin/upper Midwest regionalism. Drove me a little crazy the first few times I heard it, but I quickly got used to it and now I see myself forming sentences like that.)

That one, or something like it, exists a little in my British dialect (maybe others too) in the form of ‘yet [more]’; for example ‘yet another rainy day’ or ‘I’ve not missed the last bus; there are two more yet’

If you think “The car needs washed” sounds bad, consider that I’ve heard my mother say, “The cat needs put out.” (Loc: WVa/Ohio)

Look upon this OP and weep ye haters of the positive anymore. The virus is spreading. Even now its tendrils inch toward you lusting for your naive sweet prescriptivist juices. Mwahahahaha!

disappears in a puff of negative concord

“Yet another rainy day” sounds perfectly normal to me, and always has. The latter, I really can’t remember before my MIL’s influence how I would phrase it. I think I would generally use “still.”

I can’t say I’ve ever heard “any more” used in the positive sense. If I ever heard someone saying the examples given in this thread, my first reaction would be that they are not native speakers of English. It doesn’t sound like an idiom, it just sounds wrong. Like saying, “I am wearing the shirt blue” instead of “I am wearing the blue shirt.” It sounds like a translation from another language.

(Location NYC)

That speaks only to your lack of exposure to other dialects.

Yes, I do, and I didn’t even know it was a regional thing. NY.

Interesting. I use it, and I, too, am a native of northern Ohio. Although I’ve lived in the South for the past thirty-odd years, and also use Southern idioms like “y’all”, “might could”, and adverbial “directly” (as in, “I’ll be there directly.”)

With a figgin?