Toward or Towards Part I

The style sheet at the publishing house where I worked for two years specified a preference for toward over towards. I followed the rule conscientiously, of course, but always felt that it was based on a misunderstanding of the -s form.

Now that I've had some time to read and Google around, I realize that 1) this misunderstanding is pervasive and various, and 2) I didn't know as much about this as I had first thought.

First, the misunderstanding: There seems to be widespread agreement that toward is American and towards is British, i.e., that the two forms function as regional markers. This notion is reinforced by Webster's Dictionary of English Usage and by the fact that both the Oxford Canadian Dictionary of Current English and Merriam-Webster list the s-less form first, while the -s form is listed as a variant. The Concise Oxford, on the other hand, does the opposite.

But in comments appended to the various blog posts on this matter, there were Americans who said they always said towards, Britons who said they always said toward, and Americans, Brits, and others who said they said both in free variation. I do not know if the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) will have anything to say on this matter when Vol. 5 (Sl–Z) is published this year.

This theory of regional variation even has embedded in it the notion that Noah Webster introduced the s-less form as a "simplified" form for American English. I thought this was implausible when I first read about it, but after consulting Webster's original dictionary I see he lists only the s-less form, even for the adverb (see 2 above).

Yet it seems clear that there is no transatlantic watershed dividing toward and towards in the same manner as, say, rubber and eraser or pants and trousers. Many people say both; and the ones who claim they always say one or the other often seem to have made up their own reasons for the choice.

I'll say more about "folk" theories of toward vs. towards in my next post.