"until"= spatial "to" ?

[Charles Doyle]

Of course, that's an archaic usage; it's interesting that it
may be being revived.  Or maybe it's just a hoity-toity
NPRism!

For some years I've been noticing, in student papers, an
increasing occurrence of the adverb and conjunction TILL
spelled 'TIL.  Now I'm seeing it on billboards, in
headlines, and even in professionally-proofread newspaper
and magazine articles.  Obviously (as my students explain)
TILL is being regarded as a contraction of UNTIL (rather
than its historical root).

--Charlie

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>Sender:       American Dialect Society
>Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
>Subject:      "until"= spatial "to" ?
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>
>Ivan Watson on NPR, reporting  from northern Iraq,  spoke
of an area that extended from point A "until the border."

>AM

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