Quick tip: Toward versus towards

As former journalists, we have no problem remembering that Associated Press style prefers “toward” versus “towards.” 

(On the flip side, we still have no idea which holidays prompt businesses to close versus run unrelated sales.)

So what does the rest of the world think?

Writer’s Digest editor Robert Lee Brewer has a simple answer, with a trick to remember it.

Just as American English prefers single-L spellings (like “canceled,” “traveled,” etc.), so does it prefer the shorter version of the preposition in question: i.e., “toward.”

The rest of the English-speaking world goes with “towards.”

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