{"id":71858,"date":"2019-08-29T09:07:33","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T09:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=71858"},"modified":"2019-08-29T09:07:33","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T09:07:33","slug":"backward-backwards-forward-forwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/backward-backwards-forward-forwards\/","title":{"rendered":"Backward, Backwards, Forward, Forwards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Backward, forward, outward<\/strong> and similar words can be used as adjectives or adverbs. When these words are used as adjectives, they do not take <strong>\u2013s.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He was seen driving in a <strong>northward<\/strong> direction. (Here \u2018northward\u2019 is an adjective modifying the noun \u2018direction\u2019.)<\/li>\n<li>Africa is <strong>backward<\/strong> in many aspects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When words like <strong>backward and forward<\/strong> are used as adverbs, they can be used with or without<strong> \u2013s.<\/strong> Note that the forms <strong>backwards, forwards and northwards<\/strong> are more common in British English. Americans prefer the forms without<strong> \u2013s.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>She was running <strong>backwards and forwards<\/strong>. (More common in British English)<\/li>\n<li>She was running <strong>backward and forward<\/strong>. (More common in American English)<\/li>\n<li>Let us go <strong>upwards.<\/strong> (British English)<\/li>\n<li>Let us go<strong> upward.<\/strong> (American English)<\/li>\n<li>We walked <strong>homewards<\/strong>. (British English)<\/li>\n<li>We walked <strong>homeward.<\/strong> (American English)<\/li>\n<li>We walked<strong> towards<\/strong> the railway station. (British English)<\/li>\n<li>We walked <strong>toward<\/strong> the railway station. (American English)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Note that we do not use<strong> \u2013s<\/strong> in expressions such as<strong> look forward to, put forward and bring forward. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I look <strong>forward<\/strong> to meeting you soon. (NOT I look forwards to meeting you soon.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Backward, forward, outward and similar words can be used as adjectives or adverbs. When these words are used as adjectives, they do not take \u2013s. He was seen driving in a northward direction. (Here&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[957,327,958,959,961,960],"class_list":["post-71858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocabulary","tag-backward","tag-backward-or-backwards","tag-backwards","tag-forward","tag-forward-or-forwards","tag-forwards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71859,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71858\/revisions\/71859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}