Till or before?

[RoseSpring]

But you have only six week before/till the Christmas, so are you intending to work day and night to finish it?


Is this sentence correct?

Do we say till or before? :up:

 

[marvan]

Hello there,

I am not a teacher but according to me the correct answer is "TILL" - in the sense: till (untill) the Christmas comes.

 

[emsr2d2]

But you have only six weeks until (or til) [STRIKE]the[/STRIKE] Christmas, so are you intending to work day and night to finish it?


Is this sentence correct?

Do we say till or before? :up:

Until is correct (this is abbreviated to "til" in British English, not "till". Other corrections are marked in red above.

 

[marvan]

Hello emsr2d2,

are you sure about the spelling of "til"? I counsulted serveral dictionaries (Cambridge etc.) and all of them show the spelling as "TILL" (double l).
Thank you!

 

[Barb_D]

You may find this reference useful: till - definition of till by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

Usage Note: Till and until are generally interchangeable in both writing and speech, though as the first word in a sentence until is usually preferred: Until you get that paper written, don't even think about going to the movies. · Till is actually the older word, with until having been formed by the addition to it of the prefix un-, meaning "up to." In the 18th century the spelling 'till became fashionable, as if till were a shortened form of until. Although 'till is now nonstandard, 'til is sometimes used in this way and is considered acceptable, though it is etymologically incorrect.

 

[marvan]

THANX A LOT

 

[emsr2d2]

You may find this reference useful: till - definition of till by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

Usage Note: Till and until are generally interchangeable in both writing and speech, though as the first word in a sentence until is usually preferred: Until you get that paper written, don't even think about going to the movies. · Till is actually the older word, with until having been formed by the addition to it of the prefix un-, meaning "up to." In the 18th century the spelling 'till became fashionable, as if till were a shortened form of until. Although 'till is now nonstandard, 'til is sometimes used in this way and is considered acceptable, though it is etymologically incorrect.

You learn something new every day! Thanks, Barb. I always used to write 'til, but noticed in recent years that the use of the apostrophe at the start of many words had begun to disappear ('phone, for example). I'll be using "till" from now on.

 

[Barb_D]

I don't know what we did before we had the Internet to answer these questions for us. I'm a reformed 'til user myself.