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Should I use "nowadays" at the end or at the beginning of a sentence? For instance: We, as advertising experts, understand what young women look for nowadays.

Parsa Emami
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    Depending on the context, both are possible. – Glorfindel Feb 21 '17 at 10:43
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    Register-wise, it's chatty/slightly antiquated. You may favour this, but placing it anywhere close to 'advertising experts' seems incongruous. ... the young woman of today ...? – Edwin Ashworth Feb 21 '17 at 10:48
  • Related: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/46771/nowadays-vs-today –  Feb 21 '17 at 19:01
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    @EdwinAshworth Chatty? Antiquated? I would not describe it as either. It's not the most formal of words, but I wouldn't bat an eyelash to see it in an official document or something. – Angelos Feb 21 '17 at 19:54

2 Answers2

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It means different things in different places:

  1. Nowadays we understand what young women look for. ...

We didn't understand in the past what young women look for, but now we do.

  1. We understand what young women look for nowadays. ...

We understand what young women look for now, which is not what they looked for in the past.

NVZ
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StoneyB on hiatus
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  • True, although a simple comma ("We understand what young women look for, nowadays") takes us back to the meaning of sentence one - although you might be well advised to just rephrase it as sentence one – Au101 Feb 21 '17 at 14:46
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    @Au101 I'm not sure it's that simple. Seems to me the comma just marks nowadays as a supplement, but doesn't assure that it's attached to the matrix clause. You could however accomplish that by moving nowadays, comma-bracketed, after understand. – StoneyB on hiatus Feb 21 '17 at 16:22
  • So first case, it's used for understand. Second case, it's used for look for? – Choe Feb 22 '17 at 15:28
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The following extract from M-W Learners Dictionary explains its usage:

Nowadays: (take care to spell nowadays correctly: not ‘nowdays’.)

Nowadays is an adverb that means “these days” or “during this time.” It suggests a period of months or years, rather than days, and it is normally used to talk about things that happen again and again, such as habits or routines.

Here are some example sentences with nowadays:

  • Nowadays, many people need two jobs in order to make ends meet.
  • People don't wear hats much nowadays.

Nowadays is typically used with the simple present tense, as in the examples above, but it is fine to use it with a continuous tense, as long as you are referring to a something that repeats over a period of time. Here are two examples of nowadays with the present continuous:

  • Nowadays, I'm relying on my husband to do the food shopping.
  • A lot of women can’t afford to stay home with the kids nowadays.

However, your sentence about the man opening a massage studio, sounds awkward with nowadays, because it sounds like the man is starting a business, and he is probably not opening the same business again and again.

Here are some alternatives that would sound better to most English speakers:

  • He is opening a massage studio soon.
  • He is opening a massage studio next week.
  • He is preparing to open a massage studio.
  • He plans to open a massage studio next month.
Community
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