04.21a "Any More" versus "Anymore". Which usage is better came up in G492 yesterday, and I told the students I wasn't sure. I found a good webpage on it, though, "Anymore" and "any more" by Bob Cunningham. He says that educated opinion is divided on what to do, saying that three alternatives are (1) "Anymore" is always wrong,(2) "Any More" and "Anymore" are interchangeable, and (3)

... "anymore" is an adverb meaning "nowadays" or "any longer", while "any more" can be either adverb plus adjective, as in "I don't want any more pie", or adjective plus noun, as in "I don't want any more."
The difference between the two meanings is illustrated in the sentence: "I don't buy books anymore because I don't need any more books."

That seems right. I would add that the distinction is not just between applying the word to time and applying it to magnitude, another possibility. One ought not to write, "Spending anymore time on that would be wrong," because there "any more" is an adjective-noun pair.

It seems to me (and Mr. Cunningham implies this too) that wherever "anymore" is correct, "any more" is also correct. Either of them can function as an adverb, so one can write either "I don't live there anymore" or "I don't live there any more". A student who wants to be on the safe side could always use "any more". But there are situations such as the sentence in blue above where "anymore" does help clarity.

[in full at 04.04.21a.htm]

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