I have two grammatical questions I wish to know, and can't really find the answers to: Is "towards" not a word? My creative writing teacher hammered into our brains that "toward" is the only appropriate variation to use, and that adding an s to the end is incorrect. Is this true? If so, is this mistake made with other common words? My second question is when do I appropriately use the word "whom," without it being obtrusive? Despite Google's assistance, I can't find a solid reference point of when "whom" is right to use, rather than "who." Is there one trick or general rule to follow?
If you scroll down the Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar section, you will see that there are two threads which have recently addressed this issue. Basically, 'towards' is the more usual and perfectly correct British English, and 'toward' seems to be used more often in the US. Your teacher may be right in saying that 'toward' is the more appropriate version if s/he is considering the normal US standard, but absolutely wrong if s/he has told you that 'towards' is wrong, or not a word. 'Whom' is a bit old fashioned now, and 'who' can be used in place of it for creative writing. Check the other threads out.
I may have mixed up what he said. And sorry for missing the other two threads, I don't mean to make double ones on this issue. But thanks for answering both my questions, and now I know I'm not committing a grammatical faux pas in choosing not to say "whom."
Whom is old fashioned now? Well, that says a lot about me haha. I've always used whom when there is a preposition preceding, such as "To whom are you talking?" and used who when there is not, like with "Who are you?" - as madhoca said though, it may well just be old-fashioned and I've been reading too many pre 20th Century books and picked that 'rule' up. As for towards and toward, yeah they are interchangeable. But towards is better because it's British English I have just been notified by an English teacher that my understanding of whom/who useage is actually still the grammatically correct way.
