Towards/toward (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jeff Prucher]

> On Friday, April 11, 2014 10:47 AM, "Mullins, Bill CIV (US)" <william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill CIV (US)"
> <william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL>
> Subject:      Towards/toward (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> From a handout, when David Foster Wallace was teaching:
> http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/03/david-foster-wallace-common-word
> -usage-mistakes/
>
> "1. The preposition towards is British usage; the US spelling is toward.
> Writing towards is like writing colour or judgement. (Factoid: Except
> for backwards and afterwards, no preposition ending in -ward takes a
> final s in US usage.)"

How many prepositions that end in -ward are there, even? Other than toward(s), all the ones I can think of (including backward and afterward) are adverbs and/or adjectives.

Jeff Prucher

>
> I grew up in Tennessee, and "towards" doesn't sound wrong to me.
> Is
> this usage more common in the South?
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
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