Recently, I critiqued a submission for our weekly writer’s group meeting. I found an obvious error in this sentence: “I’ll be in the office till noon.”
Till is something you do to the ground, I thought, as I changed till to until.
After a moment, it occurred to me that, since the word appeared as spoken dialogue, maybe it should be written as ’til. The more I thought about it, I swore I’d seen til used without the apostrophe. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure about the whole thing.
I stopped critiquing and started researching.
It turns out, I was flat-out wrong from the start.
The first of these words to appear in English literature was till. It appeared around the year 800. Until doesn’t show up until around 1200 – created by appending the prefix und (meaning up to) to till.
That means that ’til is improper, since till was the original word.
I also learned that til is not a real word.
In summary, here are the rules:
Till is technically the most accurate.
Until is an acceptable (and more common) alternative.
‘Til should be avoided.
Til is not a real word.
Sources:
- Dictionary.com’s entry for till.
- The Maven’s Word of the Day for June 5, 1998 at RandomHouse.com
- World Wide Words post titled Until, Till and ‘Til.
Comments
Related Posts
How to Create Suspense: Leave ‘Em Hanging
In order to compose a page-turner, you’ve got to leave the reader hanging. Here are some tips for doing it well.
Optimal Word Count for a Novel Manuscript
Whether you hope to get published the traditional way or plan to self-publish, the word count of your completed work is important. Here’s the scoop.
Six Steps to Maximize Writing Productivity
Six steps to take before launching a writing session that will prevent writer’s block and significantly improve your productivity.
Plot Planning for Novels
After abandoning my third rewrite of my novel, I decided the time had come for some serious plot planning. Here’s what worked for me.
