The following article by Chris Tribble discusses the uses of words associated with forward/backward in the (Manchester) Guardian Weekly.

Going forward

Last month Guardian feature writers reported that going forward was one of their personal hates of 2008. Statements such as "We have every viable business going forward ..." are not among their favourites. However, although it annoys some, going forward seems to be making it into the main stream and recently featured as word of the month on the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary web site.

There's no point in railing against changes in the language, but this discussion has moved me to look at how the Guardian Weekly talks about the future and past in general, and also to take a closer look at forward and backward in this newspaper.

Going forward is actually used very little in the Guardian Weekly. While there are 3,274 instances of forward in the archive (1996 - 2009), there are only 23 occurrences of going forward, and in only one instance does it refer to the future. In the other 22 instances it is used mainly to report forward movement in a sport (France looked nervous going forward).

In most cases forward is associated with put (as in put forward an argument), step, looking, leap, look, way and move. Backward is most closely associated with looking, glance, step, and, oddly, religion.

What we look forward and backward at in the past and the future, offer an intriguing contrast. First, and I found this strange given the tendency of newspapers to indulge in predictions at the start of a new year, the word future (8,479) occurs half as frequently as past (15,245).

Past, as an adjective, is associated almost entirely with periods of time: decade, year, century, week and various numbers. Future, on the other hand, refers mostly to people: generations, status, government, negotiations, direction, king, husband and leaders.

The past itself is not a generally happy place, as, apart from recent and glorious, it is most frequently colonial, Nazi, distant, imperial, dark or troubled. At least it's a bit more consistent than the future. Going forward (oh dear, it's catching), the future is going to be foreseeable, better, uncertain, political, immediate, distant, bright or bleak. Take your pick.