So much for my Washington state friend picking this up on the internet. I’m surprised, because I lived there for a year and a half and never heard anyone say that.
[QUOTE=AudreyK]
So much for my Washington state friend picking this up on the internet. I’m surprised, because I lived there for a year and a half and never heard anyone say that.
[/QUOTE]
It’s a big state. 
[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
I’m a graduate student in English and my specialty is grammar, so I couldn’t click on the title fast enough.
From a purely linguistic standpoint, “anymore” is unnecessary in both of the OP’s examples and, in the interest of clarity, should be deleted. If one of my freshman composition students submitted that sentence in a paper, I’d cross through “anymore” and note that there must be a better phrase than “plastic tabby things” – “plastic tabs”, for instance. I’m not sure, however, whether the extraneous word “anymore” is actually wrong or just less right than if it were deleted.
Also, when using “whether”, one normally leaves off “or not” if that is the only other possibility. “I don’t know whether it’s a regional thing” would be more correct than “whether or not it’s a regional thing”, since “or not” is the only other choice being offered. However, it would be perfectly correct to say, “I don’t know whether it’s a regional thing or an effect of Internet messaging.” This shows that the speaker is offering two choices from among several that may be possible.
I love the English language.
[/QUOTE]
So you’re going to hold message board posts up to the standard of academic English? If that’s your goal, then you have a big job cut out for yourself. Go to it.
As noted above, anymore in this case is just a regional way of saying “nowadays.” Ho hum.
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
…(Perhaps it’s just because I’m from Jersey, but that “What with the…” opening sounds perfectly fine to me)
[/QUOTE]
See!
[QUOTE=emilyforce]
it was common in Washington State (where I grew up)
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I also grew up in Washington State and never heard anyone use “anymore” like this in real life. (I have read it on the internet. The first time, I had to re-read the sentence to figure out what the hell the person meant.)
It reads very irksomely. It can’t possibly sound good.
[QUOTE=jjimm]
One of the reasons it’s so annoying is that it’s used as precisely the opposite of what the word originally meant. “Not in this present timeframe” is what “anymore” means, whereas the usage here is “in this present timeframe”.
[/QUOTE]
It jars with me too, but I disagree with you on this point. Yes, “any more” is usually used in a negative sense, as in “X is not true any more”, but it doesn’t follow that “any more” means “not in this present time frame”. If it did, then you wouldn’t need the “not”. “Any more” is basically just a synonym for “nowadays”, but one that is generally used only in the “not nowadays” construction.
The dictionary concurs:
“any more or esp U.S. anymore adv any longer; still; now or from now on; nowadays: he does not work here any more”
Interestingly, it doesn’t even say that it is usually used only in a negative sense, although I hadn’t encountered the affirmative use until I joined the SDMB.
“Anymore” as one word instead of two, though? Now that bugs me! 
[QUOTE=guizot]
So you’re going to hold message board posts up to the standard of academic English?
[/QUOTE]
Actually, I learned all of that somewhere between sixth grade and high school graduation. That was back when grammar was taught to children in the public schools. I’m not even too sure what “the standard of academic English” is.
And no, I’m not trying to hold anyone to any standard. I answered the OP’s question, then used the OP’s own words to demonstrate how grammar rules are broken every day, with absolutely no ill effect on civilization.
[QUOTE=jjimm]
It bugs the shit out of me. I guess it’s a southern (?) US thing. I should accept it as a regionalism, but I can’t. If you use this construction, please accept my apologies; I’m working on it.
[/QUOTE]
Nope, not Southern. I grew up in the south and no one used that. I think it’s more upper midwest, but I could be wrong on that.
And I’d like to say say that it frustrates me every time there’s something that’s a U.S. regionalism that irritates someone that it’s attributed to the South? (Yes, I realize this is a generalization and doesn’t always happen. It just seems that it does more often than not.)
ETA: yes, if I’d read the thread I would have seen possible localities pointed out. I didn’t. And I do realize that jjimm is not a US person so I can accept his statement more easily than coming from those in the US. Sorry.