Forward vs. Forwards

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is James in Seattle.

Hiya, James. How you doing?

Oh, very good. Thank you.

And, okay, so I had read or heard somewhere a long time ago

That an S doesn’t belong, on the end of a word, like toward or backward.

But I often hear someone say, move towards the back of the bus

Or take three steps backwards.

So I was curious what the ruling is on that,

And partially because I was listening to a show the other night,

And one of my two favorite hosts used the word towards.

Towards?

Yeah.

Really?

What show was that?

It happened to be one of you two.

Oh, my goodness, really?

Inevitably, it would be me because I’m the one that constantly mispronounces things and gets it wrong, right?

Go on, spell it.

Well, I couldn’t say that, but I thought, well, you know, was that a slip of the tongue or is it okay to put the S on the end?

You know, but the thing is, it’s those keen observations about the speech of other people that lead us down interesting paths in language, right?

Yes.

Absolutely.

So, James, you were taught that the traditional rule is that it’s toward and forward, right?

Right.

And I’d read, except for the British usage, they use the F.

Right.

You might say towards the back of a double-decker bus if you’re in London, right?

Yeah.

James, you’re right.

In this country, generally speaking, your best bet is to avoid the S.

You wouldn’t say pioneers heading in the direction of California would say westwards ho, right?

That’s how I remember it.

But there are a few exceptions with the word backward.

Like forward and toward, that’s all without the S.

Correct.

From what I can see or remember of my style guides, these rules aren’t the kind of rules that even the most conservative style mavens tend to get really peevish about.

Right?

Right.

Using the toward or towards or forward or forwards or backward or backwards, they tend not to see this as like the worst thing that you could ever say.

What’s really interesting about this particular case of whether or not to use forward or forwards or toward, towards,

Is that the rules are really easy to follow in print and a little more lax out loud.

The kind of thing that you can say verbally is going to be less offensive to people.

And most people won’t even notice that you said the S form and won’t have a problem with it.

And it’s not the kind of thing that you should be excoriated for if you do say it.

Unless you have ears like yours, James.

Well, yeah, it’s kind of funny because I noticed in print you rarely see the S, but almost everybody puts the S on the end speaking.

Well, I think you’ve raised a good point.

I mean, traditionally in print, the rule that you described is correct, no S.

But, as Grant was saying, it’s a lot harder to do that when you’re running your mouth.

Right, right.

Well, thank you very much for straightening me out on this.

You were already straightened out.

You were 100%.

You’re part of the club, buddy.

All right, well, carry on.

I love your show.

All right, and we will send you your Nerd Club of the Air t-shirt right away.

Okay.

All right, thanks.

I’ll wear it proudly.

All right.

Glad to hear it.

Bye-bye, James.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a question about grammar, language, usage, what’s right and what’s wrong,

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