"until" vs "before" or "to"

[Beverly Flanigan]

Perhaps he heard "till" in California, thought it was the current American
usage (which it increasingly is), and, as we suggested earlier, assumed it
was an abbreviation of "until"--hence the (mis)spelling.  Too bad, because
it IS cool.

At 11:48 PM 7/18/2007, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
>Subject:      Re: "until" vs "before" or "to"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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.
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org