Towards/toward (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Towards" actually sounds slightly more normal to me, "toward" being more
formal.

I guarandamntee you that in my NYC existence I said nothing but "towards,"
and I would bet that my 19th century grandparents did the same.

JL


On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 6:00 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Towards/toward (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 4/11/2014 01:44 PM, Mullins, Bill CIV (US) wrote:
> >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 about "amongst"?  :-)
> Joel
>
>
> >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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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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