till

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>The editor insists on changing it to
>"til" or "'til" (so far she hasn't added the apostrophe, but I suspect she
>will).  I see "till" all the time in our field, esp. with ref. to the time
>expression, which has become a frozen frame, it seems to me.  Does anyone
>not agree with me on this??

I think the editor needs to look for a different line of work if she
persists in this.

I quote the M-W usage dictionary (which I like, maybe because it agrees
with me a lot) (1989; p. 908):

<<What _'til_ is, unarguably, is a variant spelling of _till_ used by
writers who do not know that _till_ is a complete, unabbreviated word in
its own right. ....

<<... if you are writing for publication, you will do well to spell it
_till_.>>

-- Doug Wilson