Placement of “anymore” with respect to other complements, as in "not possible anymore to …"

Question

I often see sentences like this from non-native speakers:

^?It is not possible anymore to cross the border without a passport.

To me, this sounds wrong, and I would write this instead:

It is no longer possible to cross the border without a passport.

Or this, which I think is grammatically correct but stylistically bad because it's hard to figure out what “anymore” attaches to:

It is not possible to cross the border without a passport anymore.

(Here “anymore” might be spelled “any more” in some variants of English. The spelling is out of scope of my question.)

On the other hand, I think the following sentences are equally idiomatic:

Crossing the border without a passport is not possible anymore.

Crossing the border without a passport is not possible any longer.

Crossing the border without a passport is no longer possible.

An Ngrams comparison shows that “no longer possible to” is the only common variant, but there are a few hits for the other variants which are not false positives.

I think there's a rule that “anymore” (when it's part of the construction “not … anymore” meaning “no longer”) must be at the end of the sentence. Is this an actual grammatical rule? Is “not possible anymore to …” something only non-natives say, something that uneducated native speakers say but educated native speakers consider incorrect, or something rare but idiomatic (perhaps only in certain variants of English)?

Answer 1

Q. I think there's a rule that “anymore” (when it's part of the construction “not … anymore” meaning “no longer”) must be at the end of the sentence.

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No longer often comes in the normal mid position for adverbs (between the subject and main verb, or after the modal verb or first auxiliary verb, or after be as a main verb), especially in more formal styles:

She no longer works here.

She doesn’t work here any longer.

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However Anymore does seem to appear more commonly at the end of a phrase but this is because of the meaning of Anymore.

Any more and anymore have related meanings, but they’re not interchangeable. Whether you make anymore one word or two depends on how you’re using it. Any more refers to quantities (Would you like any more tea?). Anymore is an adverb that refers to time (I don’t like tea anymore.). Ref Grammarly

I don't want to talk about it anymore - let's drop the subject.

You don't have to pretend anymore - you're among friends now.

Nobody wants this type of heater anymore - I can't even give it away!

The old hospital isn't used anymore.

She used to love cats but one attacked her and she doesn't like them anymore.

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Examples from MERRIAM-WEBSTER however show the use during a sentence as well at the end.

Your pain tolerance isn’t high anymore because the drugs kill your senses.

That group, which, in some cases, isn’t so young anymore, along with the veteran experience sprinkled in, looks to one day get over the hump of the perennially contending big brother up I-75 in Tampa Bay.

Ref MERRIAM-WEBSTER

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In certain dialects, some speakers use anymore as a synonym of nowadays.

Cookies are almost impossible to come by around here anymore .

However, this usage is not considered acceptable in formal writing. In fact, it’s a fairly rare usage, so you may want to remove it from your writing altogether unless you’re writing for a very specific audience.

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So I would conclude that there is no rule written or unspoken rule present in common usage "that anymore must be at the end of the sentence.*

Answer 2

It’s “Any more”. So please don’t write “anymore” any more as it’s not English according to a lifetime’s experience (and my Chambers dictionary). As for its placement, that’s a matter of style and emphasis. And anyone who “thinks there’s a rule” must be learning English and should perhaps be posting on English language learners.

Footnote

My favourite example of the usage of “any more” is from the field of social medicine:

“Don’t have any more Mrs Moore”.