On Sat, May 12, 2007 at 04:26:16PM +0200, Kolbjørn Barmen wrote:
> On Sun, 13 May 2007, Finn Thain wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 12 May 2007, Kolbjørn Barmen wrote:
> >
> > > On Sat, 12 May 2007, Finn Thain wrote:
> > >
> > > > To answer your question, I find it easier to parse the original idiom,
> > > > "'til now". Your corruption, "until now", loses information available to
> > > > anyone who can recognise the idiom. Granted, this is not the worst example
> > > > of that effect...
> > >
> > > It is either "till now" or "until now".
> > > "'til" is just broken english.
> >
> > Seems you are right that "till" is also an accepted abbreviation (I found
> > both in the Oxford American Dictionary). I suppose that there's no typo to
> > fix here.
>
> Well, both "'till" and "'til" are broken. It is either "till" or "until".
> The fix was valid.
>
> "until" and "till" are _not_ the same word, "till" is not an abbreviation
> of "until", it's actually quite the opposite. I suspect this is obivous
> for most non-english germanic speakers I will guess. "Until" is in
> norwegian "inntil", meaning "in to", and "till" is just english spelling
> of our "til" (meaning "to").
>
> The spelling of "until" should ofcourse be "in till". :)
The etymology of "until" shows that it bases itself in the middle english
"untill" which is derived from (quote) "un- (see unto) + till" or just
merely (quote) "till".
Looking up "till" gives (quote) "till (til) prep., conj. [OE. til] same
as UNTIL"
That means that "til" is Old English for "till" which when used as a
preposition or conjunction is the same as "until". (Old English stopped
being used circa 1100AD.)
However, discussing "til" is merely a distraction. "til" is not "'til".
"'til" is a contraction of "until" where the "'" here denotes the missing
letters ("un"). Just like "he'll" where the "'" denotes the letters "wi"
(giving "he will") or "'70" meaning "1970".
So I'd say that "'til" is as correct as "until" which can, in turn, be
directly replaced by the word "till". Or at least according to my late
'70s dictionary.
--
Russell King
Linux kernel 2.6 ARM Linux - http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/
maintainer of:
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