Grammar Girl here.

Today I have two topics for you: toward versus towards and between versus among.

Toward Versus Towards

Jamie, Mia, Beverly, and Gen all wrote to me wondering what the difference is between the words toward and towards (with an s). The bottom line seems to be that toward and towards are both correct and interchangeable: you can use either one because they mean the same thing. Many sources say that the s is more common in Britain than in the United States (1,2,3), so you should take into account what the convention is in your country and use towards in Britain and toward in the U.S.

The story is similar when you need to decide between the words backward or backwards. Most references say that, like towards, backwards is standard in Britain and backward is standard in America. The exception is that when you are using backward as an adjective, as in her grandmother's backward ways or the program has backward compatibility, then you never use the s. It is always backward as an adjective.

So I guess if you are in the U.S. you have it easier because you can just remember that it's always backward without the s. We like short-cuts here, such as eating dinner in our cars, so you can remember that we've lopped off the s. But if you are using British English, then you have to remember that it's backwards as an adverb and backward as an adjective.

Between Versus Among

Now, maybe you noticed that when I was choosing between words before, I used the word between and not the word among. Allison pointed out the distinction to me last month, and I commissioned another cartoon to help everyone remember that you use between when you are writing about two things and among when you are writing about more than two things. That's a quick and dirty tip, and there are exceptions, but if you remember that between is for two things and among is for more than two things, then you'll be right most of the time (4,5,6,7).

I'm expecting to hear a collective groan about the corny mnemonic that I'm going to give you, but I do think it will help you remember when to use the word between. Here's the sentence: "Steve dreaded choosing between the bees and the tweens." The idea is that Steve is choosing between two different groups--bees and tweens--and the correct word is between.

For those of you who might not know, tween is a word that's used in the press to describe kids who are at that weird stage between childhood and their teenage years. Depending on whom you ask, a tween can be a youth who is anywhere from 8 to 14 years old.

If you go to the Grammar Girl section at QuickandDirtyTips.com, you can see the cartoon of Steve making the difficult choice between the bees and the tweens. He has a group at each side, and he's wondering whether he wants to get stung or deal with tweens begging for cell phones. I hope the cartoon will help you remember that he is choosing bee-tween the two groups.

I know some of the more advanced listeners will be wondering about the exception to that rule, and in the listener survey people have complained that I don't always go into enough detail, so here's the deal: you can use the word between when you are talking about distinct individual items even if there are more than two of them. For example, you would say, "She chose between Harvard, Brown, and Yale" because the colleges are individual items she is choosing between. On the other hand, if you were talking about the colleges collectively you would say, "She chose among the Ivy League schools."

To me, these distinctions can be very subtle, so you should do more reading to help you fully understand the exceptions. And, for those of you who are interested, I put a bunch of links at the web site.

And again, I want to emphasize the quick and dirty rule: most of the time you will be safe using between for two items and among for more than two items.

More online reading:

Dictionary.com entry for between

Dr. Grammar entry for between versus among

TECHWR-L post about using between with more than two items

Grammar Police entry for between versus among (This includes some of the very helpful dictionary entries that I reference below, but that I hesitated to reproduce because of copyright issues.)

About the Transcripts

So now, about the transcripts: Over 1,100 people took the poll and 76 percent of you would give up transcripts to have more frequent podcasts. On the other hand, many of the minority who want transcripts made impassioned pleas that I'm finding hard to resist, so I decided on a compromise: I will produce full transcripts at least once a week, and then if I do more than one podcast a week, I will probably do shorter show notes with the main points and references. I hope this is a compromise that will make everyone happy. And thank you so much to everyone who took the time to vote and write. Also, a lot of people misunderstood and thought that my problem is typing the transcripts, but the time-consuming part is actually proofreading and copyediting the transcripts, so unfortunately, transcription software or services aren't going to help.

Contact Info

E-mail: feedback@quickanddirtytips.com

Voice-mail: 206-338-GIRL (4475)

References

1. Goldstein, N., ed. The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. Reading: Perseus Books, 1998, p. 208.

2. Burchfield, R.W., ed. The New Fowler's Modern English Usage. Third edition. New York: Oxford, 1996, p. 788.

3. The American Heritage College Dictionary. Third edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993, p.1431.

4. Goldstein, N., ed. The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. Reading: Perseus Books, 1998, p. 12.

5. The American Heritage College Dictionary. Third edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993, p. 132. [Note: this entry includes an excellent discussion of the exceptions to the quick and dirty rule presented in this podcast.]

6. Burchfield, R.W., ed. The New Fowler's Modern English Usage. Third edition. New York: Oxford, 1996, p. 106. [Note: this entry includes many examples of how to use between when more than two items are being discussed.]

7. Scharton, M., and Neuleib, J. Things Your Grammar Never Told You. New York: Longman, 2001, p. 61.