Here's a question for the Americans

[erastes]

Why do you say toward and backward

and we say towards and backwards?

Comments

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I must have been influenced by so many British children's books when I was young, because I put the S on them. Firefox's spell checker does not like "afterwards".

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Nod nod - my editor has carefully gone through and removed all my s's from upwards and backwards and sideways and so on! :D

[moons-storm.livejournal.com]

Even as an American, I have always said 'sideways'. So does every American I know. 'Sideway' makes no sense. o.O;

[erastes.livejournal.com]

ah - yes, perhaps she didn't do that. LOL not thinking straight today. upwards, definitely.

[moons-storm.livejournal.com]

Yeah... upwards, downwards, towards, forwards, backwards, afterwards... We drop the 's' from all of them. Which annoys me as, to my ear, it doesn't sound right. But, my editor gets me for it, too.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

"afterward they had tea"

THAT SOUNDS SO WRONG!!!

[copperbeech.livejournal.com]

No idea the reason for dropping the s. I was taught the British spellings of most things as a child, and it gripes my ass dealing with [twenty-something] American editors who correct them.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Sorry to burst the simplicity your editor is using, but it's not correct. Some Americans do use the s's on the end. It seems to be regional (not even restricted to dialect) and part of the identification on where you come from. My impression has been it will show up in more rural dialects in the south and northeast(comments on Maine or Rhode Island or Arkansas or Georgia, anybody?) but I'm not an expert. I've heard it more often from them than from guests from the UK. I'm wondering if it's tied to dialect inherited from Appalachian Scots-Irish.

[mrs-norrington.livejournal.com]

I agree that it can be used with or without s. I wouldn't question seeing either forwards or forward. I lived in a central state, for the first 11 years in the south (closer to the real south) and the second 11 years in the north of the state (more urban and north).

I feel fine with saying "I went forward and then backwards." *shrug*

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Thank you, yes indeed. Seems odd to me that an editor from either side of the pond is getting fussed about something that minor. I see published material all the time which gets so many more important things all wrong, such as it's and its.
Sigh.
*carefully clambering off the grammar soapbox and heading off towards the teapot instead...*

[erastes.livejournal.com]

She not getting fussed about it - they use the Chicago Manual of Style as a template and that says that American use has the s included.

[readingthepast.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Never really thought about it, but as an American, both versions sound acceptable. Except for "sideway." That's a new word for me!

[eroticjames.livejournal.com]

see, now I always say go towards something or your going backwards, but all my editors change it to toward or backward. So, it's us Texas raised folk too...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I think it's all the Chicago Style Guide, every one seems to follow that.

[suebrownstories.livejournal.com]

I have just encountered that one with my American editor. My American betas - of which there were many - never picked it up.

[mysid.livejournal.com]

I grew up including the -s on those words, and I had to unlearn it when I started teaching grammar. I think whether we do it or not is a regional thing in the USA, and New Englanders (of which I am an honorary member) tend to be more "British" in our speech than other parts of the USA.

So why don't Americans add -s to the end of those words? Because, on a whole, we're stupid enough to make it -'s if we tried. Backward's, toward's?

[markprobst.livejournal.com]

What drives me nuts is that you British always speak about companies and organizations using the plural verb rather than the singular. For instance: "Running Press were right to do so." sounds like bad grammar to me. :)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

That;s probably just me - i went to a grammar school but never got taught much grammar

[lusiology.livejournal.com]

Will you get the 's' reinstated?

Speaking of differences, the use of 'I could care less' always jars me.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

No, they've gone. I'm not that fussed - the spelling is all American too, but as it's set in Bohemia, not Regency England I'm not worried. They always use American spelling so I'll just be careful never to give them an English set piece, because i will NOT have my characters saying ass for arse!!

I could care less is just a lazy and badly translated version I think.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

I hear "I could care less" all the time out here, on the West Coast. Or, "I could care less about that."
It's often used as a mild runup towards a more forceful slangy statement emphasizing how little they really do concern themselves about that particular thing or feature of everyday life or person or what have you.
I could say "toward", in there, but it varies whether I feel the need for an ess there. I'm wondering if (like Ebonics) the use of an ess is being modulated by something else, such as surrounding consonants or meter in the sentances and so on.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it's silly isn't it? It makes no sense. If you could care less about something then you care about it. We say "I couldn't care less" because that's what you feel.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

The "couldn't care less: makes a great deal more sense, of course!
Slightly OTP, but I thought you'd enjoy this if you hadn't run across it yet. This sort of meme-voice-recording seems to go round periodically. Hardly any point to doing it myself if you hear this one, my usage is virtually the same, though I'm a bit slower and my voice is deeper than this. I'd speculate that shalanar is probably SF/Bay Area, or raised there; there's a certain crispness which gets blurred out and slowed down a lot more as you depart the big metropolises. San Francisco/Bay Area, also San Diego, diction is generally not as fast as LA environs, either.

http://shalanar.livejournal.com/767300.html

[welshbard.livejournal.com]

I used to use 'towards', etc. until I ran into a mentor in my early 20s who corrected me, and ever since I've dropped the esses.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes, but did they say WHY?

[welshbard.livejournal.com]

For the same reason we Americans removed the 'u' from 'colour' and 'parlour', the 'ue' from 'dialogue', 'catalogue', and 'analogue', and why we replaced the 's' with a 'z' in 'authorise', 'prioritise', and 'sympathise'. In other words, for no damn reason, except to be 'different'.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Because Noah Webster decided to make things different FROM the British (not different TO) when he did his dictionary, and that's how we're taught. But the US has so many dialects, odds are somewhere someone is saying something that will sound right to you. Except for the collective plurals.

[gaedhal.livejournal.com]

I think it must be regional, because I've always
said towards and backwards.