Page:The American Language.djvu/163

Rh indirectly, is shown by the American disdain of the English precision in the use of the indefinite pronoun. I turn to the Saturday Evening Post, and in two minutes find: "one feels like an atom when he begins to review his own life and deeds. The error is very rare in English; the Fowlers, seeking examples of it, could get them only from the writings of a third-rate woman novelist, Scotch to boot. But it is so common in American that it scarcely attracts notice. Neither does the appearance of a redundant s in such words as towards, downwards, afterwards and heavenwards. In England this s is used relatively seldom, and then it usually marks a distinction in meaning, as it does on both sides of the ocean between beside and besides. "In modern standard English," says Smith, "though not in the English of the United States, a distinction which we feel, but many of us could not define, is made between forward and forwards; forwards being used in definite contrast to any other direction, as 'if you move at all, you can only move forwards,' while forward is used where no such contrast is implied, as in the common phrase ’to bring a matter forward.’" This specific distinction, despite Smith, probably retains some force in the United States too, but in general our usage allows the s in cases where English usage would certainly be against it. Gould, in the 50 's, noted its appearance at the end of such words as somewhere and anyway, and denounced it as vulgar and illogical. Thornton has traced anyways back to 1842 and shown that it is an archaism, and to be found in the Book of Common Prayer (circa 1560) ; perhaps it has been preserved by analogy with sideways. Henry James, in "The Question of Our Speech," attacked "such forms of impunity as somewheres else and nowheres else, a good ways on and a good ways off" as "vulgarisms with what a great deal of general credit for what we good-naturedly call 'refinement' appears so able to coexist." Towards and afterwards, though frowned upon in England, are now quite sound in American. I