"until" vs "before" or "to"

[James Harbeck]

Just to add a smidge of data, I have a rather cool Frank Gehry watch
(see
http://www.fossil.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=18233&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=961&iSubCat=981&iProductID=18233)
that gives the time as, e.g., "8 past 10" or "17 til 11" (right now
it says "14 til midnight"). It presents it in an emulation of Gehry's
handwriting. So it seems that Frank Gehry uses "til." However, though
he's originally from Toronto (moved to California at 18), I'm not
used to hearing "til" here at all -- "to" is the current local word.
(I learned to use "of" when I lived in Boston and stopped just as
readily when I moced back to Canada.)

James Harbeck.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org