Forum: Author Hangout

Wrong?

Yes, wrong according to Nazi grammarists.

using the word 'til is a well used contraction of the word until that's used in dialogue and poetry. It's been used as such for hundreds of years and a highly acceptable usage. While I'd use it in dialogue, I'd not use it in narrative.

It's NOT "'Til death do we part", it's "Till death do we part". According to most of the etymological sources, it was never a contraction, but was instead a misusage of "till" (though I haven't checked many references to be sure of this).

It's NOT "'Til death do we part", it's "Till death do we part".

CW,

If you check all your old English poetry books and literature you'll find it's 'til and the phrase is 'til death do us part. However, for some reason a lot of US people now use 'till - I suspect it's another case of the 'we can't spell right so we're making everyone else change' crowd changes. The use of till in this way seems to be a recent US thing, because we have:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Til_Death_Do_Us_Part_(film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Til_Death_Do_Us_Part_(Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Til_Death_Do_Us_Part_(U.S._TV_series)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Til_We_Meet_Again

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Til_I_Hear_It_from_You

There are some more recent films and song where they use till.

From:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Rankin

Rankin is best known as author of the hymns "God Be with You 'Til we Meet Again" and "Tell It to Jesus."

Oddly enough, I found a lot of US references who think it's 'till and they say you shouldn't use it. However, 'til is an abbreviated from of until which is from the Old Norse un + til so there is only one 'l' in it, never two.

According to Merrain-Webster, "till" dates from the 12th Century, borrowed from Scottish. It's actually a part of Middle-English (from before the time of Shakespeare). That makes "till" the original usage, rather than a derivative.

According to Merrain-Webster, "till" dates from the 12th Century, borrowed from Scottish. It's actually a part of Middle-English (from before the time of Shakespeare). That makes "till" the original usage, rather than a derivative.

Yet the 1960s Greater Webster lists the word until as being from Old Norse which is about a millennium older than what you cite. The etymology link given earlier by Geek of Ages has it as Old English from Old Norse and Proto-Germanic and notes the Scottish also had until as intill and intil.

Yet the 1960s Greater Webster lists the word until as being from Old Norse which is about a millennium older than what you cite.

No, you're not following the etymology. "Until" and "till" both derive from the Scottish and Norwegian "til", but "Til" was NOT used in Middle English, and only came into use recently as an 'assumed' contraction.

The key when reading ANY etymology is to trace the 'first recorded usage', not the source from which we adopted it. The source gives insights about its origins and usage, but like Latin, we rarely use the same form as the original word.

An etymological dictionary might shed some light...

Not really. They don't even list when 'til come in common English usage.

It's correct as a contraction of until (cf 'bus and omnibus) but like 'bus, it's becoming increasingly rare in English English and considered affected. I'd use until or the synonymous till, the existence of which seems to have pre-empted the simple dropping of the apostrophe.

AJ

All I've ever seen in British English

From the Oxford dictionary:

Till

Usage

In most contexts, till and until have the same meaning and are interchangeable. The main difference is that till is generally considered to be more informal than until. Until occurs much more frequently than till in writing. In addition, until tends to be the natural choice at the beginning of a sentence: until very recently, there was still a chance of rescuing the situation. Interestingly, while it is commonly assumed that till is an abbreviated form of until (the spellings 'till and 'til reflect this), till is in fact the earlier form. Until appears to have been formed by the addition of Old Norse und ('as far as') several hundred years after the date of the first records for till

Whereas the Merriam-Webster dictionary says:

Definition of till

1 or 'til or less commonly til : until

2 chiefly Scotland : to

Try reading some William Shakespear.

never liked him, so i gave up on him after the one compulsory play of his at school.

Fine, but he and a lot of other British writers and playwrights used till, not til or 'til in the 17th century.

Are you sure that's the spelling actually used by Shakespeare, or a modern printing?

All evidence suggests it is, since 'til isn't recorded as being used until recently (I'm guessing mid-20th century).

Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced my original signed copy of Shakespeare's plays somewhere, so I can't give you a 'definitive' answer. ::(

DS, in both those cases Will isn't using the truncated form of until but the full middle English word till which is a different word with a similar meaning. The question isn't about the full word till, but about the truncated form of until as 'til with the apostrophe.

Since my last post on this I've been trying to keep out of this, however, your last post shows you either didn't read or didn't understand what I said in my posts.

The people in this discussion have been confusing two differed words with different spellings, and it doesn't help that certain US sites are doing the same.

One word till - four letters no apostrophe before, no truncation of from another word. Four letter and complete as whole. This has a number of meanings from different root sources. It can refer to what many now call a cash register in a shop, work on a field when farming, and a reference to a future time.

The other word which was asked about in the original posts is the truncated version of until - different root source but also references a future time. The word until has a truncated form of a three letter word with an apostrophe before it of 'til.

In the TV series you mention they use the four letter word. I can see how the title apostrophe before the first word and after the last word may cause confusion, but the apostrophe is not part of the word till, it's to highlight a title.

Now, you can agree with what I've said and provided link to, or you can disagree. However, I think this subject has reached it's limit and nothing extra or new will come from continuing it.

I'd place a higher priority on encouraging a greater diversity of forum posters, but as your own personal standard I don't see a problem.

AJ

I suppose my reason for mentioning it was as an example of the kind of constant vigilance we should be trying to employ.

I usually give a free pass to forum posters and I believe they, in turn, let my own minor mistakes through unchallenged.

To outsiders, the forum comes across as dominated by a cliquey handful of posters. Suggesting elements of a forum style guide, even 'at play', isn't going to counter that impression.

Still, we've done the titular topic to death and we're just waiting for the puns to start, so hopefully outsiders will have stopped reading by now ;)

AJ

You two faced traitor!

Do I detect a hint of jealousy because the USA are ranked No 1 in the world ahead of Germany, in the version played by the more intelligent half of the world's population? ;)

AJ

Maybe you should define 'the more intelligent half of the world's population' more to your liking.

The half that, on a like-for-like basis, gets the better exam results and higher earnings, until a large proportion of their number stops to have babies. ;)

AJ

It's certainly true in the UK. There's still a significant earnings gap between men and women, but women are actually paid more until they reach their mid thirties then men overtake them and race ahead.

AJ

I watched it sometimes! The main character was a racist but the overall message was anti-racist, with his black neighbour always saving the day. It couldn't be made these days because liberal fascists are too thick to understand it.

Here's the Wikipedia (spit!) link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_Death_Us_Do_Part

AJ

Wasn't that the show that spawned 'All in the Family' as the U.S. version?

I vaguely remember the name so quite likely.

I understand the racism was somewhat defanged for the US market.

AJ

It made a whole range of prejudices legitimate targets for comedy, and is one of the most highly regarded programs of all time for that reason.

For that reason, folks on the liberal side of U.S. politics and culture had no problem with it. The line of comedy the show opened leads eventually to Stephen Colbert and others, who've made mocking extremist*—kindly note the adjective—conservative positions into an art form.

bb

*There are credible conservative theorists, at least one or two in the U.S. still alive, but none who have any influence in the current U.S. administration. That's what gives Colbert and other comedians such a rich vein to mine. They wouldn't have nearly as much fun with George Will or someone like him as they do with the Orange One and his ilk.

You could have made the argument that 'most highly regarded TV programs' automatically implies a strong liberal cultural bias.
If you had I would have answered, "Whoops! You've got me with that one." :-)

I had in mind a comment earlier in the thread that "liberals" would block any new attempt at such a show. On the contrary, of course, since the show's popularity demonstrates most people got the joke.

No comment on your assertion that popular shows are mostly popular because liberals like them. It's hard to argue "24" had a liberal bias. Indeed, it thrived on the conspiracy theories popular on the right, although the bad guys weren't weenie liberals.

They were corrupt in other ways, but always fell to truth, justice, and the American Way, in the person of Kiefer Sutherland. Who, in the perfect turnaround, now plays a weenie liberal standing up for the same things in "Designated Survivor." Jack Bauer in a cardigan? Who'da thunk?

bb

his dad is a full blown loony lefty.

Who had onscreen almost-sex with Julie Christie, don't forget. That counts for something, in my book. (Which is full of pretend things, many of which I write about.)

bb

someone who wants peace and justice

That's certainly NOT an SJW.

And keep in mind that for them, peace means that it's okay for them to beat YOU with a stick until you capitulate to their demands, but you're not allowed to defend yourself.

And justice means that you do what they say, because in their minds, they're morally superior to you, so you must bow down to them as if you were a subject and not a citizen.

Keep in mind that the Community Organizer in Chief even said that many of us conservatives seem to cling to our religion or our guns without actually understanding the history of our country AND the actual population in the Midwest. He's also the one who said that you bring a gun to a knife fight, attempting to escalate things. And you wonder why we're concerned about what we view as the American way of life being under assault?

Of course, you'll also note that in Phoenix there was no mass violence, only a few Trump supporters beaten up for being Trump supporters. Arizona is an open carry state. No one tries anything like that here, either. Oklahoma may not be an open carry state ... yet ... but we all DO carry. Damn straight we cling to our guns AND our religion. The first protects the second - and from a legal perspective, the second amendment protects the first.

Now I'm curious about the differences in the use of till and 'til in Brit and American English.

First, the only place I think 'til is correctly used is in dialogue, and only when the character doesn't pronounce the "un". And then it should be 'til and not till.

Now is "till" a word? Evidently it is, especially in British English; maybe predominantly in Scotland (per Merriam-Webster).

From the Grammarist:

Till, as a variant of until, is a preposition meaning up to the time of. Till—not 'til, an unnecessary abbreviation—has been in the language for centuries, and there's no reason not to use it. To some it may sound less formal than until, but the two words are interchangeable in almost all contexts.

Because many Americans mistakenly view till as incorrect—we're not sure why this is—the word is much more common outside the U.S. (though until is far more common everywhere).

ETA:Grammar Girl says basically the same thing.

When you're talking about a period of time that must lapse before something happens, till and until are equivalent. Don't believe it? Check a dictionary. Some sources say that until sometimes has a more formal sound than till, but often the two words are just interchangeable.

And till isn't contraction of until either. They're two separate words, and till actually came first. It's the older word, first used in the 12th century. People didn't start using until until the 13th century.

Nearly all the style guides I checked recommended against using 'til.

Many style guides also go out of their way to emphasize that till is fine, which is often a clue that at some point people said it wasn't; and given that I've had to answer questions about disputes over the word, I think that if you want to completely avoid controversy, it's safest to stick with until. But I'll do my part and say there's absolutely nothing wrong with till.

This may explain my personal experience growing up in the US. In 58 years never thought till was a correct word in this circumstance.

Neither did I. In fact, as I stated early on in this thread, I thought "till" was a separate word, completely unrelated to "until".

From the Grammarist:

ETA: Grammar Girl says basically the same thing.

Okay. Point settled. Once again, we've established that the Australian educational system teaches it's own version of English, including variations of UK based dictionaries.

I stand corrected. (I'll always side with documented source material over individual memories of what they think they were taught in school. Anecdotal evidence is highly problematic, even in the best of circumstances.

From the Grammarist:
Till, as a variant of until

Ernest is right, 'till' and 'until' have different etymologies. The Grammarist is wrong - the two words might effectively be synonyms but 'till' is in no sense a variant of 'until'.

Fortunately Grammar Girl has done 'her' research properly!

AJ

Ernest is right, 'till' and 'until' have different etymologies. The Grammarist is wrong - the two words might effectively be synonyms but 'till' is in no sense a variant of 'until'.

No, we established that early on, since "until" came into usage (first recorded English usage) much later than "till" did. I never did get a sense for WHY "until" came into usage if we already had a word for it.

The only place I've ever seen or heard the word 'till' is in reference to farming & gardening. Tilling is preparing the earth for planting, usually following plowing. A tiller is the piece of equipment a farmer or gardener uses to till the soil.

It's a separate (alternate) definition of till, as is it's use as a synonym for 'cash collection' or daily sales total.

All evidence suggests it is, since 'til isn't recorded as being used until recently (I'm guessing mid-20th century).

One other thing. I said 'til should be used in dialogue when the character says "until" without pronouncing the "un". After reading Grammar Girl's blog, I don't think that's true. She said 'til first started in the 1980s. So when a character is saying 'til, they're probably saying till.

Then Grammar Girl is wrong. I remember using it in the late 60's - early 70's. Whether it was used before then I wouldn't know since I wasn't born 'til 1960. ;)

My mistake. Grammar Girl was quoting someone else:

In fact, Garner's says people didn't really even start thinking 'til was OK until the 1980s, so it's a quite recent error.

One other thing. I said 'til should be used in dialogue when the character says "until" without pronouncing the "un". After reading Grammar Girl's blog, I don't think that's true. She said 'til first started in the 1980s. So when a character is saying 'til, they're probably saying till.

Although "till" seems, by all account, to be the correct use, I suspect the ONLY way you can use it in dialogue, without several people flagging it as an error, is to have someone else correct a character for using 'til incorrectly, thus establishing the correct usage to readers.

But then, who the hell wants to write a story about grammar Nazi's correcting everyone's word usage! :(

is to have someone else correct a character for using 'til incorrectly,

I saw that in the movie "The Final Season."

The Sean Austin character was talking to a newspaperman on the team bus and used "like." The newspaperman corrected him, saying, "As." Sean Austin said, "Huh?" The newspaperman said, "Never mind."

The drawer in a cash register where the money is kept is still known as a till.

In English English, the whole cash register is also called a till (Oxford English Dictionary).

AJ

It's a separate (alternate) definition of till, as is it's use as a synonym for 'cash collection' or daily sales total.

Yep. I completely forgot about that. There's an expression, "dipping into the till," referring to stealing money from a cash box or cash register.

Nowadays Till is abbreviated to Point Of Sale Terminal ;)

AJ

Regardless of if you think it should be the three letter word with a single 'l' or the four letter with the double 'l' it should not be used in narrative or any formal document as a replacement for until. The truncated form is used in speech and informal works.

In the end, whether you use 'til or till, someone is likely to complain. Your safest bet, is to continue using "until", as it universally accepted and no one disagrees over its use.

It doesn't really matter if some people have seen one version, or others don't accept the other, you pick the one that everyone does agree on and move on. Wasting time arguing over unwinnable arguments helps no one.

Neither till nor 'til, nor even until appears anywhere in the Star Spangled Banner.

It all depends upon which part of the Internet one consults, apparently.

bb

ETA: Oops, sorry, forgot to add the correct tag: #FAKE Internet

(OK, bad joke.)

CW aske to ignore his (CW's) post,

If CW was telling us to ignore his post before he posted it, I would expect him to have not posted it.

Now if CW wasn't attempting to censor SB or EB by telling us to ignore what they had to say, then I apologize for my remark.