Forum: Author Hangout

towards vs toward

Switch Blayde 🚫

My automatic typing of the word in the Subject was "towards" (with the "s"). Then one day I read that using the "s" was British spelling while without the "s" was American spelling. That goes for similar words like "backward/backwards."

So I painfully made the change and now when I see the word with the "s" my mind sees it as an error and drops the "s" when reading.

But I always see "towards" spelled with the "s". Is that now the new standard for American spelling too? Did I change the way I spell it based on outdated material?

Replies: rustyken awnlee jawking Dominions Son Switch Blayde

rustyken 🚫

@Switch Blayde

To me in some circumstances the word 'toward' is more appropriate than 'towards'. At the moment I can't think of suitable examples.

Replies: tendertouch

tendertouch 🚫

@rustyken

Just saying things out loud to see how they work for me. 'towards' sounds strange to my ear for singular use. "He goes toward" sounds better than "He goes towards" For plural, either works. But that's just my ear. All of the references that I checked show them as equivalent.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Switch Blayde

This topic triggered a sensation of deja vu ;-)

AJ

Dominions Son 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Your post made me curious. I'm in Wisconsin. My experience is that both get used.

So I took a look at Google Ngrams. Both are used in the American English corpus. Granted, "toward" is more common than "towards" today. But usage of towards has increased since 2020. And towards used to be more popular than toward in the Us used to be more popular. They flipped in the US around 1870.

In the British English corpus, towards is more common, but the popularity of toward has been increasing since around 1960.

Personally I have a tendency to think towards is better for movement, but toward is better for describing direction without movement.

I walk towards the corner.

I looked toward the corner.

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Switch Blayde

When I said, "But I always see 'towards' spelled with the 's'," in my post, I meant on SOL. Granted, many SOL authors use British English spelling. But there are plenty of American and Canadian authors there as well.

Now maybe I only spot the ones with the "s". Maybe I just read over the ones without the "s" without noticing them.

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Forum: Author Hangout

towards vs toward

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