I'm finding all sorts of interesting things in Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite. Jane Casagrande's book first came up in the debate about the relative positions in the universe of quotation marks and commas.
This time, after lauding the grammatical correctness of "The Simpsons", (oops) she duns them for abbreviating "until" as "'til" (as in a "drink 'til you barf" sign at Moe's Bar), as I do (at least I'm in good company), claiming it should be "till".
It didn't make sense until I looked it up: Hard copy of The Oxford Dictionary, and online at dictionary.com. Fortunately, the latter give an explanation: Till is actually the older word. The prefix "un" meaning "up to" was added later. In the 18th century, it became 'till, as if it were an actual contraction. "Although 'till is now nonstandard, 'til is sometimes used in this way and is considered acceptable, though it is etymologically incorrect.
Naturally, a couple of days ago, I was about to write "'til" when a little bell rang in my head telling me it was wrong, so I weighed the possibilities and compromised with the worst solution of them all: "'till". Oh well. I'm a work in progress.
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