Each week The Old Editor will attempt to address your entreaties for information and advice on grammar and usage, writing, writer-editor etiquette, and related subjects.
The Old Editor does not address marital and relationship matters, dietary questions, or automobile mechanics.
NOTE: The Old Editor is accumulating a backlog of questions, so this is a bonus post.
The question: "I have a question about a word that is frequently used today. The word is 'anyways'. Is it a valid word? It seems to me that 'anyway' is the correct word. I appreciate the clarification."
The Old Editor answers: Anyways has been around a good long while, in the sense of "in any way or respect." The Oxford English Dictionary cites the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer: "All those who are in any ways afflicted. …"
But the meaning of the word in current use is "anyhow," "in any case," "at all events," and the OED labels that meaning dial. or illiterate. Merriam-Webster's is a little gentler, labeling it chiefly dialect. These are none-too-subtle suggestions that if you use anyways you sound like a rube.
The Corpus of Contemporary American English has a multitude of citations, nearly all of which are from spoken sources of fiction representing dialogue. So anyways is by all definitions a word, but one most commonly found in informal speech. If you think it appropriate, use it; if not, don't.
There's a bit in James Thurber's "Ladies' and Gentlemen's Guide to Modern English Usage," a parody of Fowler's Modern English Usage* that illustrates the point:
" 'Whom' should be used in the nominative case only when a note of dignity or austerity is desired. For example, if a writer is dealing with a meeting of, say, the British Cabinet, it would be better to have the Premier greet a new arrival, such as an under-secretary, with a 'Whom are you, anyways?' rather than a 'Who are you, anyways?'—always granted that the Premier is sincerely unaware of the man's identity. To address a person one knows by a 'Whom are you?' is a mark either of incredible lapse of memory or inexcusable arrogance."
Thurber's combining the formal whom with the decidedly non-standard anyways in that ridiculous question is a delicious send-up of discussions of grammar and usage.
*I have to be careful. I have quoted this Thurber passage in previous posts, and some incautious readers have failed to spot it as a parody.
Got a question for The Old Editor? Write to him at john.mcintyre@baltsun.com. Your name will not be used unless you specifically authorize it.