Stop by anywhen

Anywhere is a common English word, as is anyhow. So why not anywhen? We say whenever, as we do both wherever and however. So again, why not anywhen?

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) did, in fact, introduce the word, but for some reason it never caught on. Instead we say sometime or anytime or whenever. Anywhen sounds funny to us, but then so would anywhere if it weren't so familiar. The same is true of most English words, including your own name. The more we hear a word, the more acceptable it seems.

Obviously we don't need anywhen, but there are numerous words we don't actually need. Teenager, for example. We could say adolescent or simply teen. Or we might even say teener. But somebody came up with the word teenager in the 1940s, and it stuck. We didn't need 24/7 either because we already had 24 hours and around the clock, but 24/7 came and conquered in the 1980s.

English has a huge vocabulary in comparison with most other languages. This is due to the way English speakers welcome new words, including those from other cultures. This is in sharp contrast with the French, who actively discourage new words, especially English words, from spoiling their beautiful language. Listen to Germans speak and you will frequently hear English words tossed into the mix. This happens much less commonly when French people talk.

Despite their welcoming attitude, English speakers don't embrace every new word that comes along, and we can be grateful for this or the English vocabulary might be twice the size that it is. Anywhen is but one of countless words that have been tried and found wanting, for whatever reason. Some words never get off the ground. Others, including many slang terms, have their day in the sun, then fade away.

Some words may be fairly common in one region, yet unknown elsewhere in the English-speaking world. This is especially true of slang terms, such as horse-pint, used in parts of Appalachia to be mean a large pint, something like a baker's dozen.

Or a word may simply fall out of use with the passage of time. When asked about why the war was going on for so long, Abraham Lincoln said, "If we just keep pegging away it'll turn out right." Today we would say pecking away.

Our language changes constantly, but also gradually, and that is a good thing. As James Greenough and George Kittredge said in their 1914 book Words and Their Ways in English Speech, "Both the purist and the innovator are necessary factors in the development of a cultured tongue. Without the purist, our language would change with extravagant rapidity. ... Without the innovator, our language would come to a dead stop ..."