When we speak we don’t notice the difference between ‘anytime’ and ‘any time’, so how do we know which one to use when we write?
Anytime
Anytime is an adverb. It has a meaning similar to whenever, on any occasion or at any time.
For example:
The school bus will leave anytime now.
Anytime you want to talk, just call me.
You can play your video game anytime, let’s go outside as it’s warm and sunny.
A good trick to use to make sure you’re using anytime correctly, is to substitute ‘anytime’ with ‘at any time’.
For example:
The school bus will leave ‘anytime’ now.
The school bus will leave ‘at any time’ now.
Any time
Any time is a noun phrase. It has a meaning similar to ‘any amount of time’.
For example:
We won’t have any time to work on the project until the weekend.
We spent too long in the bath, so now we don’t have any time left for a bedtime story.
I hardly spent any time playing video games, because my math homework took so long to finish.
A good trick to make sure you’re using ‘any time’ correctly, is to substitute ‘any time’ with ‘any amount of time’.
For example:
We won’t have ‘any time’ to work on the project until the weekend.
We won’t have ‘any amount of time’ to work on the project until the weekend.
