Both towards And for are both usable and have been used interchangeably since their creation in the 9th century. There have been some commentators against the use of for but those objections are not supported by proof of use. Choose the one you like.
Many English speakers know that British English and American English are different, and if emphasized on their differences, they will likely point out some lexical differences (like “boot” in English). for “trunk” in American) or some spelling difference (like British “honor” and American “honor”). But there are some sly differences that surprise even our word experts: for And towards.
Is that meteor heading towards Earth or towards it? If you’re American, you can use one of two words—some would argue that ‘towards’ is incorrect, but that’s really a matter of personal preference.
For those unfamiliar with the oddities of this particular area, there are some who claim that towards is preferred in American English, while for preferred in British English. But no one has been able to come up with a good reason for the rule.
Origin of Towards(s)
from for) old: it dates back to the 9th century, where it is an amalgamation of the word ARRIVE and the suffix -wear, is used to indicate a particular direction. If you go towards something, you etymologically move in the direction ARRIVE that item. But from the earliest time of for life, it was spelled both with a final -S and no. This is a bit odd, since 9th-century Old English was very particular about its case endings, but it seems to be quite common when it comes to Old English directional words: just about every -ward word from this era formed with an adjective, adverb or preposition—forward, backward, forward, inward, outward— of a similar nature -ward mate is almost identical in meaning. (Sometimes the -ward the word also subtly refers to the manner in which motion is accomplished, but this seems inconsistent.)
With or without “-S”
Early -ward And -ward Words function as adjectives, adverbs, and nouns, but for reasons we don’t fully understand, grammarians and usage experts feel that this mess needs to be cleaned up. The first appeal that we can find in the usage literature is Edward S. Gould’s collected thoughts on the so-called use and abuse Good Englishpublished in 1867. In an article specifically about towards And forGould cites a bit of etymology (not entirely spurious), noting that Old English -wear gave us some words, and then claimed that the addition -S for these words an “innovation” is worthless:
But where is the order for the final addition S for any word, — except for its accidental, or perhaps accidental, use by some Old English writer, such as Milton, Shakespeare, Dr South, and others? Without a doubt, those authors are followed by uncountable modern writers; but also, one might say, without the writers’ reflection; […] The etymology of the word provides no reason for the letter s; its additions are merely arbitrary,—though, also capricious; for few writers use it uniformly. If any person should seek to defend it, he must make his defense beyond the immediate cases. [toward and towards] include anywhere, everywhere, nowhere, anyway, all the time, now, and such. The usage knows nothing has made that addition. In the common parlance of the uneducated, nothing is more common than somewhere, anywhere, anyway, nowhere, etc; and, so far, nothing more vulgar.
That was good enough and vital for later American writers who formulated the idea that for has no etymology and therefore has a basis. We’re starting to see, in the US, a decline in the use of for from the late 1800s onwards, like the idea that for not suitable for evaporation.
However, the British have very little to talk about towards And for until the 20th century. HW Fowler argued in 1929 Dictionary using modern English that all -ward Words are usually adjectives and all -ward Words are usually adverbs or nouns. (This is not proven by millennia of actual use of towards And for.) Belong to for itself, he said:
Of the prepositions [toward and towards] the -s form is the prevailing form and the other tends to be literary on the one hand & provincial on the other.
Adjective towards much rarer than both adverbs and prepositions, which means that Fowler’s prescription is essentially to use for. May be like towards considered literary to account for its historical use by good British authors, and provincial to account for its preference in America.
The stage has been set for the strange state we now have: that towards is American and for are British. Yes for has been used less frequently in written, edited American English since the early 20th century, but not much less than. A combination of British and American sources shows that the British used for only slightly ahead of American usage. But Americans use towards significantly larger than used by the British towards: in a dataset, Americans towards twenty times more popular than the British towards.
What should you do? If you are American, you can use either towards or for, depending on what sounds more natural to you. There are those who will claim that for in American English is wrong, but it’s really a matter of preference.
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
