A Word, Please: There shouldn't be any more questions anymore

That ends now. I've just put an end to my marathon procrastination run by reading up on the subject. What I learned is that my instincts — everyone's instincts, in fact — are pretty good.

For example, would you pause at the sight of the one-word “anymore” in “I don't go dancing anymore”? Not likely. And what if you saw “I don't go dancing any more,” with “any more” as two words? Would that jump out at you as an error? Probably not, even if, when you stopped to think about it, you decided that the one-word version looks better.

But what if you came across this exchange: Mom: “There's more lasagna if you're still hungry.” Child: “I don't want anymore.”

Does that strike you as odd? It should, because that's the only one of our examples that is actually an error. It should be “I don't want any more.”

Here's why: In “I don't want any more,” the term “any more” is functioning as a noun phrase. That is, “more” is a noun and “any” is an adjective modifying it. It's the object of the verb “want,” and objects of verbs are usually nouns: Do you want more? Can I have more? In both these cases, “more” is the object of the verb, so in these sentences it's a noun. And putting “any” in front of it doesn't change that.

But the one-word “anymore” is not a noun. It's an adverb.