The -ward words

The unenthusiastic security guard was leading him down a tree-lined driveway towards a distant high brick wall with a red door in it. -- The Accidental Sorcerer by K. E. Mills, pg 4.

"Of course, Milady," Sharlassa agreed, turning back towards the door, and Hanatha waved her daughter towards the window seat along the solarium's western wall. -- War Maid's Choice by David Weber, pg. 215.

First off, I want to congratulate the artist (Steve Stone) that created the cover art for The Accidental Sorcerer. I do this for two reasons: 1) many sci-fi/fantasy covers relate poorly to the content inside the pages, often getting most aspects of the character(s) wrong, often with overly-busty women that are NOT described in the text and 2) I am awed at the ability of the artist to capture in a shadowed face so many emotions and personality traits, particularly in the one eye!

Apparently, many people search online seeking clarification in the differences and usages of the words "toward" and "towards." All sites answering such questions that I found in a quick search gave, essentially, the same response: They are equivalent with differing preferences shown by various parts of the English-speaking world, the British choosing "towards," Americans "toward."

However, I believe that all of those sites have missed the main point: Why are there two words meaning the same thing? The answer, I believe, lies in all those other -ward words, such as backward, forward, rearward, afterward, etc. One example that I experienced points, I believe, to the solution. A British friend was telling me something and used the phrase "backwards and forward." Did you note that he used the 's' in one of the constructions, but not the other?

During my online searches, I ran across a website listing 69 words ending with -ward. Though some are fairly rare, many are in widespread use, with most of those having no near-twin with the -wards ending. Since I apparently could not construct a search string that took me to a website discussing the origin of the -ward ending, I am forced to hypothesize. Or, rather, to state the hypothesis that I came up with many years ago: The ending 's' in the -wards ending is an addition or affectation added after the suffix came into widespread use indicating 'in that direction.' And, it has been added to only some of the -ward words.

This inconsistency of usage is one of my pet peeves, because, to me, it indicates (yet, again) that people simply do not think about what they speak or write. My friend, when asked if he realized that he had used two different constructions on very similar words, stopped, thought, and said, "huh." I suspect that the addition of that terminal 's' was originally due to ignorance and the rest of us have to follow that pied piper.

I object. Strenuously.

Less vs. fewer

"I want you to develop and train a group of players, not less than eight, and no more than fifteen...." -- The Soprano Sorceress by L. E. Modesitt, Jr., pg. 554.

Still, there were less than forty in each salvo. -- The Shadow of Saganami by David Weber, pg. 726

As noted by the Grammar Girl, though "less" and "fewer" are used to mean the same thing, the two words are used in differing situations. "Less" is used for indicating a smaller amount of something that is uncountable, figuratively or literally, and "fewer" for countable items. "Sand" is not considered a countable item, despite the fact that one could, technically, count the number of grains on a beach or some such, but that would take one longer than the time allocated to ones existence. One can count people or bullets, sticky buns and opinions. One cannot count clothing, rough-housing, nor enamored-ness. That is, one might have fewer people, bullets, sticky buns, and/or opinions, but less clothing. One could ask ones children for less rough-housing and for ones daughter to be less enamored of the head of the local motorcycle gang.

That's how I learned things way back when in the black days of schooling in which teachers actually taught the rules of the grammar road, one learned how to diagram sentences, and one learned to place adverbs next to the word or phrase that the adverb modifies. Nowadays, though, we seem to want to merge meanings and uses of varying words such that they become interchangeable. A fair few of the posts on this blog will probably deal with aspects of this movement (e.g., elevation vs. altitude, farther vs. further).

[Mr. Modesitt, my favorite author, is some 16 years older than am I, so I know that he also learned English grammar in those same old times. So did Mr. Weber, who is only some nine years younger than Mr. Modesitt. (These two authors are sole authors or co-authors of a significant chunk of my personal library; they are both prolific and are incredibly good world builders -- unlike J. K. Rowling, who seems not to have cared about the Harry Potter backstory, though she did spin a great yarn.)]

I object to this lessening of the number of distinct words that we use. English may be the premiere language of the world in the great abundance of ways to say similar, but not quite the same, things. I feel that this reduction in variety is driven by those too lazy or ignorant to know the difference in the usage of word dichotomies such as this one. Additionally, I note that these conflations of two words seem to move only one word's usage, not both. So, while many consider as acceptable the use of "less" in the above quotes, those same folks would consider the phrase "fewer clothing" to be flat-out incorrect.

Viva variety!

Internal consistency

"Oh no.  Not the Senethar this early in the morning. I'm [Timmon] for my bed again." ... Still grumbling, he and Jame dutifully squared up as their ten-commands followed suit. Fire-leaping Senethar consisted of a series of kicks and blows.  Its kantirs could be practiced alone but when in class two opponents mirrored each other, starting slow, getting faster, not seeking to connect.  Jame's fist brushed past Timmon's ear, and his past hers.  Simultaneous kicks pivoted them away from each other, then back.  So far, properly speaking, they were engaged in the Senetha, the Senethar's dance form. -- Honor's Paradox by P. C. Hodgell, pg. 27.

Then she [Jame] and Brier both got whites after fighting each other to a draw at the Senethar in a match that took the entire class period and left both barely able to stand. -- Honor's Paradox by P. C. Hodgell, pg. 215.

"Well, there is that. I [Timmon] hope to get another white  for the Senetha, though Shade has."  Jame [Jame] wasn't surprised, given what she had seen of the Randir's skills.  She hoped she would also score in that discipline, but so far the class hadn't appeared on her daily roster. -- Honor's Paradox by P. C. Hodgell, pg. 215-216.

In the three quotes, above, a tiny part of the sometimes-dark, always-quirky (particularly in the later books), and complex story of Jamethiel (Jame) Priest's-bane illuminates an unfortunately common lapsus in editing of sci-fi/fantasy books:  inconsistency within the storyline.  I can easily understand how such bits can crop up in an author's submitted manuscript as she or he moves bits around and changes wording during the writing.  However, an editor paying attention should really catch such mistakes.

The bit about "whites" relates to the giving of stones by instructors (three each, white and black) to cadets during their final testing at Tentir (a military academy).  White stones are given to the best cadets by each discipline's instructor, the blacks to the worst, though no instructor need give out all, or even any, of that instructor's six stones; most cadets receive no stones, white or black. White and black stones cancel each other out, and a cadet "passes" by receiving a non-negative score, with even a single white (canceled by no black) earning a cadet high honors and pride of placement in duty assignment after graduation.

While there may seem to be some ambiguity as to whether the above represents a lapsus or not, my reading of the full storyline makes me believe that the Senetha and Senethar are taught in the same class, by the same instructor; it is one discipline. If so, the second and third quotes contradict each other, as Jame won a white in Senethar, but just a half-page later, she is hoping to receive another white in the same discipline, which does not happen. Though this sort of lapsus requires quite-careful reading to catch, catching such is decidedly an aspect of an editor's task.

Though my focus in this essay is on internal consistency, the editor(s) and copy editor(s) of this book missed a fair few other bits in the above quotes, including missing commas in numerous places and using an adjective (slow) where an adverb (slowly) would be correct.  Finally, despite my promise to pick on a different publisher (Baen), I did not manage it, though I did use a different author's work.  I cannot really help it -- Baen's stable includes many of my favorite authors and the company has published a huge percentage of my favorite books.