Towards/toward (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

> I wasn't taught that there was any prescriptive distinction - or even a
stylistic one - between the two.)

Nor, AFAICR, was I.

 JL


On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 8:26 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Towards/toward (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 1:44 PM, Mullins, Bill CIV (US) <
> william.d.mullins18.civ at mail.mil> wrote:
>
> > I grew up in Tennessee, and "towards" doesn't sound wrong to me.  Is
> > this usage more common in the South?
> >
>
> My mother grew up in Longview and Marshall, Texas, and used only "towards"
> [twOdz]. I was born in Marshall, but I grew up in Saint Louis, where I
> began to use "toward" [toU at rd], because I felt that it was less Southern
> than the form with -s. I eventually discovered that, as _acsian_ alternates
> with _ascian_ in OE, so also does _toweardes_ alternate with _toweard_ in
> OE.
>
> At that point, I stopped caring, given that nobody else cared. (I wasn't
> taught that there was any prescriptive distinction - or even a stylistic
> one - between the two.)
>
> After I had moved to Los Angeles, I was astounded to discover that many
> people there considered StL to be in the South! They even asked me how it
> was that I didn't have a Southern accent.
>
> Youneverknow.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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>



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