It’s till, not ’til
From the American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition:
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.
I made friends with the American Heritage 4th edition when I read its usage note for he:
Usage Note: Traditionally the pronouns he, him, and his have been used as generic or gender-neutral singular pronouns, as in A novelist should write about what he knows best and No one seems to take any pride in his work anymore. Since the early 20th century, however, this usage has come under increasing criticism for reflecting and perpetuating gender stereotyping. �Defenders of the traditional usage have argued that the masculine pronouns he, his, and him can be used generically to refer to men and women. This analysis of the generic use of he is linguistically doubtful. If he were truly a gender-neutral form, we would expect that it could be used to refer to the members of any group containing both men and women. But in fact the English masculine form is an odd choice when it refers to a female member of such a group. There is something plainly disconcerting about sentences such as Each of the stars of As Good As It Gets [i.e., Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt] won an Academy Award for his performance. In this case, the use of his forces the reader to envision a single male who stands as the representative member of the group, a picture that is at odds with the image that comes to mind when we picture the stars of As Good As It Gets. Thus he is not really a gender-neutral pronoun; rather, it refers to a male who is to be taken as the representative member of the group referred to by its antecedent. The traditional usage, then, is not simply a grammatical convention; it also suggests a particular pattern of thought. �It is clear that many people now routinely construct their remarks to avoid generic he, usually using one of two strategies: changing to the plural, so they is used (which is often the easiest solution) or using compound and coordinate forms such as he/she or he or she (which can be cumbersome in sustained use). In some cases, the generic pronoun can simply be dropped or changed to an article with no change in meaning. The sentence A writer who draws on personal experience for material should not be surprised if reviewers seize on that fact is complete as it stands and requires no pronoun before the word material. The sentence Every student handed in his assignment is just as clear when written Every student handed in the assignment. �Not surprisingly, the opinion of the Usage Panel in such matters is mixed. While 37 percent actually prefer the generic his in the sentence A taxpayer who fails to disclose the source of ___ income can be prosecuted under the new law, 46 percent prefer a coordinate form like his or her; 7 percent felt that no pronoun was needed in the sentence; 2 percent preferred an article, usually the; and another 2 percent overturned tradition by advocating the use of generic her, a strategy that brings the politics of language to the reader’s notice. Thus a clear majority of the Panel prefers something other than his. The writer who chooses to use generic he and its inflected forms in the face of the strong trend away from that usage may be viewed as deliberately calling attention to traditional gender roles or may simply appear to be insensitive.
December 15th, 2004 at 10:01 am
My only issue with use of the word “till” is that it still has two other meanings in modern parlance. As a verb, it’s what farmers do to the soil in their fields; as a noun, it’s where the bartender goes with your twenty bucks. So there’s not so much a lack of familiarity with the word, rather an awkwardness to using it correctly. I’m not wild about using a construction like “we talked till the lights came up full and the other patrons rose to don their coats,” because to me that “till” has a slight tinge of anachronism. “‘Til” not only looks but feels like a contraction of “until,” and thus it gives the impression of serving both of language’s two masters, concision and ease.
In most other things, the AHD and I are of a mind, though. I predict that given a little time, there will be a note about how “’til” may be etymologically incorrect, but it has become the standard. Clearly, they are wise as well as smart, because they nicely deflated the idea of “he” as a neutral pronoun. I should check to see how they feel about my other bugaboo, the treatment of the final comma in a list (the one before “and,” for example) as optional. That’s a whole other argument, however.
December 15th, 2004 at 4:42 pm
I must admit, I prefer “till”, if only because apostrophes are so ill used that I appreciate any chance to avoid them.
I’m right with you on the serial comma, though. At my former place of employ, our copy standard was not to use the final comma in a series. That practice, while more concise, annoyed many a conscientious writer there, including myself.