Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
the way
is an idiom in which way is a noun but the phrase itself functions like an adverbial or a conjunction much of the time. All such uses as these are Standard in American English: Where did she learn to walk the way she does? She knits the way her mother did. They look funny the way they wear their hats. This is the way it’s going to be.
