The Washington Monthly

January 21, 2005

WORDPLAY....This is a random note to the blogosphere: there is no such word as "anyways." It's "anyway."

This just sets my teeth on edge....

UPDATE: Laziness will kill you every time. As several commenters have pointed out, "anyways" is listed in standard dictionaries — including all three of the volumes that reside two feet from my desk — as (variously) nonstandard, archaic, colloquial, or dialect versions of "anyway." I think I'd still argue that this makes it unsuitable for standard written English, but then again so are "heh," "um," "er," "gotta," and "dunno," which are all blogosphere favorites for capturing conversational tone.

The hell with all that, though. I still don't like it. I guess I'm officially entering curmudgeonhood or something.

—Kevin Drum 1:01 PM Permalink | Trackbacks

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