English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I've heard both "cater to" and "cater towards" used, but I was wondering which one was correct. For example:
- The event's theme seemed to cater to the artistic crowd.
- The event's theme seemed to cater towards the artistic crowd.
Are there rules for this? Which is correct?
You want cater to here. I don't think you cater toward something.
You could say something like,"The event's theme seemed geared toward the artistic crowd." (In this case, gear would have the meaning "to adjust or adapt so as to make suitable.")
(Definitions from The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition)
This is pure opinion but I'd read "cater to" as meaning "intentionally designed for the artistic crowd" and "catered toward" as meaning "designed in a way that the artistic crowd would tend to appreciate, but not specifically designed for the artistic crowd"
I don't recall ever seeing "cater towards", and its line on Google ngrams is indistinguishable from zero to my eye. (There are some occurrences, but very few.)
