till

>>In which century. I'd think the first meaning that jumps to mind for most speakers is "till" as a synoym of "until", second, for Brits, a cash register, and last "to plow".<<

Same here - I would not even think of the two other meanings unless someone actually mentioned them.

On that note, to me at least, "until" is intuitively derived from "till" and not the other way around. (And I honestly find people who write "'til" really annoying, to say the very least.)

Well, in the evolution of our language, would it not be possible to create a new, shortened form of "until" as " 'til "?

We do it for 'mid (<amid), 'cuz (<because), 'round (<around)...


what's the problem?

...I mean, who really says "unto" anymore, except in Biblical speak?...we revert to the original "to" without the later-added 'un-' prefix. Same with "til". and the original orthography was a single "l" at the end.

>>In which century. I'd think the first meaning that jumps to mind for most speakers is "till" as a synoym of "until", second, for Brits, a cash register, and last "to plow".<<

well you thought wrong

<well you thought wrong >

Did I? And how can you prove that?

Here are the top, i.e. most frequent, occurences of "till" (searched as "* till *) in the British National Corpus (BNC):

WAIT TILL I

WAIT TILL THE

WAIT TILL YOU

, TILL THE

THE TILL .

, TILL I

IT TILL THE

WAIT TILL WE

WAIT TILL THEY

THE TILL ,

, TILL IT

, TILL THEY

, TILL HE

, TILL SHE

UP TILL THE

, TILL WE

NOT TILL THE

IT TILL IT

THE TILL AND

WAITED TILL THE

I did this test on myself after reading this post, to see if I really actually used the full word "until". Each time I said or thought it, I stopped myself and analysed the word. I found that I was actually saying and thinking "til" for "until", however, in writing and in conscious speech, I admit to preferring "until".

This denotes a rather artificial usage of "until" as the "standard" word, but I doubt that people ***REALLY*** use it. In actual use they defer to "til".

Try it yourself. Remember not to let your mind trick you by substituting "til" for "until" because of conditionaing or training...

In ordinary conversation the word "until" is almost always cut down to just "till" and spelt that way. btw "spelt" as in past participle of "spell" is only used in the UK apparently - "spelled" everywhere else. Till in this sense can also be cut down further to 'til but that is rarely used except in poetry.

Here is an example of one of the loveliest use of the word "till" meaning up to a certain time and/or eventuality:

***As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
O I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.***

Owr ain Rabbie, of course.

In Scots dialect the word "till" can also be used instead of the preposition "to" or "toward".

<This denotes a rather artificial usage of "until" as the "standard" word, but I doubt that people ***REALLY*** use it. In actual use they defer to "til". >

In fact, very few people write "til" in British English.

Results from the BNC (mentioned above):

wait until - 956 times per million words - generally spread across al registers, with the highest appeareances being, again, in spoken register, news and fiction.

wait till - 453 times per million words (218 of those appeared in the spoken register and 178 in fiction, with only 5 examples appearing in the academic register.

wait til - 3 times per million words

http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/

<<In fact, very few people write "til" in British English.
>>

I'm not talking about writing,,,I always ***WRITE*** 'until',,,and NEVER " 'til' "...but...nevermind.

Didn't you ***get*** it???

<I'm not talking about writing,,,I always ***WRITE*** 'until',,,and NEVER " 'til' "...but...nevermind.

Didn't you ***get*** it??? >

When one needs to transcribe spoken English and the speaker had said "til/till" and not "until", should one write "til" or "till"? In the BNC, "till/til", even in spoken English, is mostly transcribed as "till". So the "til" spelling is the least preferred by far.

Whether "till" or "'til" is not the point I was making.

The contrast is between officially using "until" while in reality using "till/'til".

>>When one needs to transcribe spoken English and the speaker had said "til/till" and not "until", should one write "til" or "till"? In the BNC, "till/til", even in spoken English, is mostly transcribed as "till". So the "til" spelling is the least preferred by far.<<

Same here in North America. Actually, the main place where I see "'til" at all is in advertising where the advertisers think they are being cute by using such a word as if it were a colloquial short version of "until" without realizing that "till" really is an independent word unto itself.

>>Whether "till" or "'til" is not the point I was making.

The contrast is between officially using "until" while in reality using "till/'til".<<

The matter is that the word that is normally used in spoken English (at least in most English dialects) is "till", and "until" really is primarily literary, formal, or emphatic in its actual usage.

well, the English word pronounced /til/ can be thought of as a fusion of two closely related words--" till " and " 'til ", where the latter represents a shortening of " until " <ult. from same root as " till ".

I know this is splitting hairs--no, splitting hair fragments!--but in any event, whether it's " till " or " til " doesn't matter. It's a matter of spelling. The word is still the same one.