In our post The Author’s Voice Plus Other Types of Editing we discuss the “author’s voice,” which refers to the words or phrases an author chooses to use. In the copyediting world, not honoring the author’s voice means making arbitrary, subjective changes that add no value and which represent nothing more than personal preferences. The issue over “toward” versus “towards” fits this profile.

Either of these can be considered correct:

Early this morning we drove toward Las Cruces.

Early this morning we drove towards Las Cruces.

My preferred dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, shows this:

toward 

adjective

1 or less commonly towards 

a: being about to take place: coming soon: being prepared 

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Most publishers have what are called “house styles” for words and phrases. The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook agrees with M-W. 

Although you’ll see many listings online that identify this as a US versus UK issue (that one is the US spelling and the other the UK spelling), this is incorrect. In the U.S. and Canada, “toward” is preferred, while in the UK most people would use “towards.”  The Cambridge (UK) dictionary indicates that they are interchangeable and neither is considered “more” correct.

To the point about the author’s voice discussed above, the AP Stylebook also notes this in the “Ask the Editor” section:

If the speaker says towards, do not change it to toward.

So this is simply a matter of personal choice: either is considered correct. As an author, a choice should be made and as long as the usage is consistent, either one is fine. And as an editor, this is something that should be left as written in order to preserve the author’s voice.

Note that the same conventions are true for other similar cases, such as “forward/forwards,” and “backward/backwards.”

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