Anyways?

‘Anyways’ - I don’t remember when I heard this first. But it seems to have caught the imagination of the Indian junta as rapidly as Rakhi Sawant’s swayamvar or the IPL. The youth who refuse to use the word or correct people for using it are usually looked down upon as un-cool and demented. The species of ‘Non-anyways’ has become highly endangered. Hunting for the ‘Non-anyways sapiens’ would be like searching for a 'needle in a haystack' (or lovelier usage- hunting for a fly in an elephant’s arse).

Even as I type all this in MS-Word, the usage of anyways doesn’t throw any red lines. The Americans are definitely covertly waging a full-scale war against Brit English. And for desis, using ‘anyways’ has become a nice way of getting back at the Brits.

To add on to the ignominy of Purists, people these days have started using more such plural forms. One fine morning, in the class of a renowned institute, one of the professors greeted the students – ‘Good mornings’. That struck me like a bolt from the blue. I am pretty sure you would have heard ‘By the ways’ too.
Will these too catch on with the hoi polloi? Well, this remains to be seen.

The bottom-line –
As the junta is going way out of the way to remove ‘way’ from the dictionaries, ‘way’ will become another archaic form. Anyways...

(Inspired by a Readers Digest article)