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I was recently corrected by an editor for using "toward" instead of "towards." I still disagree with him, but hey … I never bite the hand that feeds me.
My assumption has always been that "toward" (and likewise "backward") were more an American English convention, and adding the extra "s" was more a British convention. Dictionaries I use list both as synonyms. But I've seen a few posts lately in other forums that claim there is a difference depending on whether the words are used as adjectives, adverbs, or prepositions. Personally, I prefer to lose the "s" which I consider superfluous.
I searched this forum for "toward" + "towards" and found nothing, so maybe it's a non-issue. But I thought I'd ask here, since WWW is always my reference of choice. Any input most appreciated.
This has always bothered me too, and I have never resolved it. Please help, Grant and Martha!
Yes, please. I have never researched it, but I must have learned it somewhere along the line.
Regardless, I hate the sound of the extra 's' and always skip it.
Using the s is untoward.
Peter
Still no definitive answer to my original question, perhaps because it doesn't exist ... the answer, not my question.
I found an interesting thread about it here: http://hubpages.com/hub/Grammar_Mishaps__Toward_vs_Towards
and they also seem to be undecided on the issue, though many comments reinforce the idea that the extra "s" is more a British English convention.
For what it's worth, a Google of "toward" yields 238 million hits, and "towards" nets 332 million.