finally17, on Apr 1 2008, 08:53 PM, said:
Cascade, on Apr 1 2008, 08:00 PM, said:
Where does the slang "anyways" come from?
My spell checker rejects it as a word but it seems to be in common usage especially among North Americans.
If it is supposed to be just a spelling variation it is the opposite of other North American adaptations of English in that it adds an extra unnecessary letter rather than removing a letter (or more) e.g. color compared with the English colour.
It's not just the opposite of the American English norm; it's a general although not strict rule that words get shorter but not longer.
The American's a hustler, for he says so,
And surely the American must know.
He will prove to you with figures why it pays so
Beginning with his boyhood long ago.
When the slow-maturing anecdote is ripest,
He'll dictate it like a Board of Trade Report,
And because he has no time to call a typist,
He calls her a Stenographer for short.
He is never known to loiter or malinger,
He rushes, for he knows he has a "date";
He is always on the spot and full of ginger,
Which is why he is invariably late.
When he guesses that it's getting even later,
His vocabulary's vehement and swift,
And he yells for what he calls an Elevator,
A slang abbreviation for a lift.
Then nothing can be nattier or nicer
For those who like a light and rapid style
Than to trifle with a work of Mr Dreiser
As it comes along in waggons by the mile.
He has taught us what a swift selective art meant
By description of his dinners and all that,
And his dwelling, which he says is an Apartment,
Because he cannot stop to say a flat.
We may whisper of his wild precipitation,
That its speed is rather longer than a span,
But there really is a definite occasion
When he does not use the longest word he can.
When he substitutes, I freely make admission,
One shorter and much easier to spell:
If you ask him what he thinks of Prohibition,
He will tell you quite succinctly it is Hell.
Ogden Nash
anyways, adv. and
conj.
1.
adv. In any way, in any respect, at all.
c1560
Bk. Comm. Prayer All those who are any ways afflicted... in mind, body, or estate.
1638
PRESTON Mount Ebal 10 As the Rudder of a ship, which turnes it any wayes.
1673
RAY Jrny. thro' Low Countries Ded. If either Catalogue or Observations prove any ways useful.
1794
SOUTHEY Wat Tyler III. i, Who may have been anyways concerned in the late insurrections.
1834
DE QUINCEY Cĉsars Wks. X. 61 Nor was such an interference... anyways injurious.
2.
advb. conj. In any case, at all events, anyhow.
dial. or
illiterate.
Oxford English Dictionary
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