Commonly Confused Words Beside and Besides

Although theres some  overlap in meaning  between beside and besides, the two words arent usually interchangeable. Definitions Beside is a preposition meaning next to or in comparison with. As a preposition, besides  means except  or in addition to. As a conjunctive adverb, besides means also or moreover. Examples Rose was too angry to sit beside Sam.  Besides, she preferred to wait outside.Louisa Weed, a pretty girl of nine was looking out the western windows. Her younger brother Henry was standing beside her.(John Cheever, The Country Husband. The New Yorker, 1955)[The] forgotten little house on the  South Side had somehow never been sold or mortgaged. A day came when Albert, the last surviving son, found this piece of property the only thing he owned in the world besides his personal effects.(Willa Cather, Double Birthday. The Forum, 1929)The boy couldnt swim, and [the fisherman]  wasnt going to have him climbing in and out of the skiff anymore than necessary. Besides he was too big.(Lawrence Sargent Hall, The Ledge. The Hudson Review, 1960)The old home had been long and low, and  an enormous willow tree, which had miraculously escaped the fire and still grew, had shaded one corner of the roof.  The new home stood beside the macadamized new road and was high and boxlike, painted y ellow with a roof of glittering tin. Besides the willow tree, the principal barn at the old home had also escaped the fire and it was still used for storing hay and as a shed in which were kept most of the farm implements.(Elizabeth Bishop, The Farmers Children. Harpers Bazaar, 1949) Usage Notes While the two words were once used interchangeably, beside has been reserved as the preposition and besides as the adverb since the late 18th century. But they are still confounded.(Bryan A. Garner, Garners Modern American Usage. Oxford University  Press, 2009)The Potential for AmbiguitySome critics argue that beside and besides should be kept distinct when they are used as prepositions. According to that argument, beside is used only to mean at the side of, as in There was no one in the seat beside me. For the meanings in addition to and except for besides should be used: Besides replacing the back stairs, she fixed the broken banister. No one besides Smitty would say a thing like that. But this distinction is often ignored, even by widely respected writers. While it is true that besides can never mean at the side of, beside regularly appears in print in place of besides. Using beside in this way can be ambiguous, however; the sentence There was no one beside him at the table coul d mean that he had the table to himself or that the seats next to him were not occupied.(The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., 2000)The Use of Beside for BesidesAs a number of commentators remark and all conscientious dictionaries show, there is a certain amount of overlap between these two words. The OED shows that historically there was even more than there is now. . . .The only question arises when beside is used in the preposition sense of besides. Gould [in 1856] disliked this use, and most commentators since his time simply avoid it by not mentioning it at all. Although it is not nearly as frequent as besides, it is well attested. It has been in use since the 14th century and appears in the King James version of the Bible in several places. Our modern evidence for this sense is modestly literary. . . . While this use of beside is not wrong, nor rare, nor nonstandard, besides is the word most people use.(Merriam-Websters Dictionary of English Usage, 1994) Practice (a) Thoreau lived _____ a pond.  Few people _____ his aunt ever visited him.(b)  Mr. Moody took several dollar bills out of his pocket and placed the money _____  his plate.(c)  Nobody _____  me knows the password.(d)  I wasnt in the mood to play tennis, and  besides, I was already late for work. Answers to Practice Exercises:Beside and Besides (a) Thoreau lived  beside  a pond.  Few people  besides  his aunt ever visited him.(b)  Mr. Moody took several dollar bills out of his pocket and placed the money  beside  his plate.(c)  Nobody  besides  me knows the password.(d)  I wasnt in the mood to play tennis, and  besides, I was already late for work. Glossary of Usage: Index of Commonly Confused Words