Way in

The way in the Wendy’s ad had already attracted the attention of linguists, who recently pondered, at the American Dialect Society’s listserv, whether the voice-over was saying “It’s way better” (as the print tagline reads) or “it’s away better.” (I think it’s way, but the words are elided as the speaker winds up for her emphatic way: “It-suh-waaaaaay better than fast food.”)

But pronunciation aside, this use of way hasn’t been controversial for a century or so. In fact, the adverb away has had the clipped form, way, for a very long time: The first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary dates to 1205. But that way was used in contexts where we still use away: “the king is way,” “go way.”

It was only in the 19th century that way developed the sense “far,” as in “way down South” and “way upriver.” John Russell Bartlett (not the quotation guy, but another word watcher) recorded it in the fourth edition of his book “Americanisms” (1877), with the rather neutral comment that it was “often heard in good society.” He gave an example from the New York Tribune: “The deaf man drove them way off from the Erbey mansion into a wood.”

By the turn of the century, however, several usage mavens had decided they didn’t approve of “way out West” and the like. Frank Vizetelly, in his 1906 “Desk-Book of Errors in English,” called it “an impropriety of speech,” recommending instead, “He has gone (or is in the) West.”

These days, though, way down south, as well as later, non-geographical uses of the word, like way too expensive, are welcome in all but formal prose. The American Heritage Dictionary’s usage note says it’s “Acceptable and common but has an informal ring.” (The way of way cool and way fun, which turned up only in the 1980s, still gets the label “slang.”)

For some reason, the road has been bumpier for the singular noun ways, though it too is fairly well aged; the OED’s earliest example, from 1588, is “They had gon a good wayes in the suburbs.” Henry Fielding used it in “Tom Jones” (1749): “That is a great Ways off yet.” But it too met opposition from the 19th-century usage critics, who thought singular way was the way to go. Bartlett said a ways for “a distance” was “a very common vulgarism,” and for most of his fellow mavens it was simply an error.

Today opinion on its respectability is divided. AHD says “a ways to go” is “acceptable but is usually considered informal.” But Bryan Garner, in “Garner’s Modern American Usage,” labels it “dialectal,” and he doesn’t mean that in a neutral way. In the forthcoming third edition of the book, ways rates only 2 (of 5) on Garner’s Language-Change Index; that means it is still “widely shunned.”

Widely, perhaps, but far from universally. In a 1994 New York Times column, William Safire explained that ways was a relic of early American usage, one that remains popular “up and down the Eastern Seaboard and out toward the Midwest,” especially outside the large cities. And it doesn’t seem to be dying out; in fact, it may get a boost from the revival of anyways, another regional variant, among younger speakers. A ways could be around for a good long while, even if total acceptance is still a ways away.

. . .

EMBRACING CHANGE: “Would you say something about the new embracing of embrace?” asks David Butwin of New Jersey, e-mailing from a Maine retreat. “It’s used to mean everything but a physical embrace nowadays.”

True enough - for instance, in the Globe over the past month, figurative embraces (and embracing) outpaced the literal hugs by roughly 15 to 1. But that’s to be expected; most physical embraces are not news, nor even fodder for feature stories. And that ratio hasn’t changed much in the past 20 years.

Still, Butwin is on to something; the word embrace, noun and verb, seems to be more popular overall than it was two decades ago. The Globe had 66 embraces in a recent month, and 52 in the same period 10 years ago. But 20 years ago, there were only 19, in a paper no smaller (and possibly bigger) than the 2009 samples.

Sometimes it’s easy to spot a vogue usage: robust, granular, relatable, edgy all landed with a splash. But other language fashions just creep up on us, and it looks as if embrace is one of the sneaky ones.

E-mail Jan Freeman at mailtheword@gmail.com. For past columns, go to boston.com/ideas.