"They walked toward the mountain." "They walked towards the mountain." Which one is correct, and why?
I would use "toward" in writing, use "towards" in speaking. Is that Kosher? I don't know, but it's what I do.
"Towards" is British usage. You might have a British character use it when speaking, but "toward" is for American usage. Ditto "regards" and "regard."
Odd little differences in prepositions/articles I've noted... Yanks: "He's in the hospital." Brits/Canadians/Aussies: "He's in hospital." Yanks: "His car is different from mine." Aussies: "His car is different to mine." Bonus round (points for German clarity): In English we take aspirin for a headache. In German, they take aspirin against (gegen) a headache. Much more logical, methinks.
I accept (and will take credit for) the benefit of your experience and knowledge. Kinda what I thought but wanted some other opinions on it.
Funny thing about "toward" and "towards:" although I can usually identify the correct word by speaking the sentence both ways out loud, it sounded right to me either way. I guess the English and American versions have both sorta seeped into my brain.
It does make sense. Why we would we take something that gives us a headache? Somebody should have thought that through when they invented English.
A friend of mine slyly used "cromulent" in a discussion in a college English class. No one--including the teacher--challenged him on it.
IIRC, "cromulent" and "embiggen" are in Webster's now. I know I see "click to embiggen" all over the web.
I'm ordinarily not a big fan of neologisms unless they're clever or communicate a concept more clearly than an existing word. "Embiggen" really works for me. In common use now, it's just a substitute for "enlarge" (the AICN website often invites users to "click to embiggen" an image), but "embiggen" seems more vivid. In the Simpson's original usage of the word--Jebediah Springfield's assertion that "a bold spirit embiggens a man"--it has almost the same meaning, but the subtle difference from "enlarges" is that the change isn't physical; it's to make oneself greater in some personal sense. I like that. And I think it's fitting that "cromulent" has become official. Its standard meaning is "fine, acceptable, normal, authentic," but I think this misses its ironic usage: to say something is cromulent is to seem to describe it as fine, good, etc., but the fact that the word cromulent is bogus means that it isn't. A: "I think the moon is made of green cheese." B: "That's a perfectly cromulent opinion." So, in a weird way, "cromulent" means both fine/good/okay and not fine/not good/not okay because it's got built-in irony. I'm also gradually coming around to the idea of making adjectives by taking a noun and adding a "-y" on the end. For example (a poor one I made up): A: "What do you think of my new flying machine?" B: "It looks sorta helicopter-y." I wouldn't necessarily recommend this for a college term paper, but in normal dialog? Or for humorous effect? I kinda like it. It also occurs to me we've been doing this for years with "-ish."
