Anything you can do . . .

The Germans have long been celebrated for their long composite words - from Abendgesellschaft to Zusammensetzbar - but the longer words of our own (fundamentally Germanic) language are rarely Germanic in origin, and usually Latinate - antidisestablishmentarianism, for instance, though that's really just a jokish freak.

But, under the influence of transatlantic English, word-merging is on the rise, and many a pedant cringes at such coinages as 'instore', 'someday' and 'alright'.

Among the more recent uncomfortable words are the North American 'anyplace' and 'anytime'. But the compression of phrases starting with the adverb 'any' into single words is as old as written English itself, and has been creeping into our literature at the rate of about one term every hundred years. Look at this record.

A thousand years ago or more, our Anglo-Saxon ancestors coined 'anything'; followed by
'anywhere' in the Middle English period (say 14th century); 'anybody' (15th century); 'anyway' (16th century); 'anywhither' (17th century); 'anyhow' (18th century); 'anywhen' (19th century); 'anyone' (20th century); 'anytime' (21st century this side of the Atlantic; but earlier in USA and Canada).

In spite of the TV play title 'Alice doesn't live here anymore', this sorry verbal concoction is not recognised in dictionaries - yet. It is on a par with the supermarkets' 'instore' and that terrible term 'underway'.

PS Beware of mocking the The North American 'anywise': it's one of those terms imported into that continent with emigrating English folk centuries ago, and used to be current in Old English before the Norman Conquest. It is not unlike the 'anyroad' that I remember (spoken, not written) from my Yorkshire boyhood. Look out too for the first printings of 'at anyrate' - if they haven't occurred already.

Anything you can do . . .