toward or towards

Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=toward

[QUOTE=]Usage Note: Some critics have tried to discern a semantic distinction between toward and towards, but the difference is entirely dialectal. Toward is more common in American English; towards is the predominant form in British English.[/QUOTE]

Hi,

I just checked dictionary.com to find out if there is a difference, and toward and towards are listed as variants of each other, so interchangeable I suppose. But I thought the quote you pasted was funny because I was thinking "I doubt I would ever use towards, that sounds crass".

Though I'm from Canada, I would have guessed it was slangy (North) American English that would use the, in my mind, crasser-sounding "towards". I think I have been away from home so long I don't remember which words I would actually use in regular conversation 😮

I'll check the Collins and the Oxford dictionaries at school tomorrow on usage.

Interesting, little sage...I'm Canadian as well, and I find that I use the word "towards". It makes me wonder why. Is it because Canada was once a British colony, or because my mom is English? lol

This makes amusing reading...

As a Brit, I think exactly the same about TOWARD! 🙂

My student asked me for the difference and all I could say was "I only ever use towards, but I'll look into it for you!"

Now I know! 😉 Thanks!

I thought there was a grammatical rule to this. I never really found out until now that there's none. 🙂