Spelling&Grammar

[blackthorn]

The place where I work has put up posters all over the place.
On the posters, it says "OPEN TIL 8PM EVERY NIGHT"
The centre manager (my boss) told me before I put them up, (he knew I would say something) that he had had the wording checked out and that it was grammatically correct. It`s the word "TIL" I`m questioning.
Any english scholars out there who can confirm this?

[orangebird]

The place where I work has put up posters all over the place.
On the posters, it says "OPEN TIL 8PM EVERY NIGHT"
The centre manager (my boss) told me before I put them up, (he knew I would say something) that he had had the wording checked out and that it was grammatically correct. It`s the word "TIL" I`m questioning.
Any english scholars out there who can confirm this?

'til is OK - but it should have an apostrophe before the 't' - 'til. :)

[iadom]

You may just get away with 'til but til is not kosher, IMHO.

[ronald146m]

Hi Blackthorn

It has to be until or till.

til isn't a real word.

As orangebird and iadom suggest, 'til is ok, but it would look a bit unusual, imho.

Ron

:smokin: :smokin:

Edit Don't go to the stake for it though, think of your career :p .

[blackthorn]

Hi Blackthorn

It has to be until or till.

til isn't a real word.

As orangebird and iadom suggest, 'til is ok, but it would look a bit unusual, imho.

Ron

:smokin: :smokin:

Edit Don't go to the stake for it though, think of your career :p .
The manager is one of the good type managers who don`t mind the staff speaking their mind or saying if something is wrong. That`s why he said that he`d had it it checked out first through head office because he knew I`d have said something. I still think he`s wrong but if this makes any difference, it`s an American company I work for.

[Atomic22]

well yank's can't spell properly anyway can they?
personally i would have used until because no one can pick fault's with that....starting a word with a ' is as grammatically bad as using an extra l.....it's all bad grammar and just plain lazy of people not to spell properly on poster's and the like....

[Chris]

I started a thread about spelling on .com once, but had spelling mistakes in my post ... :blush: ... you tread a dangerous path! But I think OB and ronald are right; 'til' is short for 'until', and as such should have an apostrophe like so: 'til in order to signify where you have dropped letters. I think you will find 'till' in the dictionary as an acceptable alternative, but definitely with a double l.

Frankly, I wouldn't believe it just because 'Head Office' says so. I work in a head office and do a lot of proof reading so I tend to notice other people's bad spelling and grammar. Frankly, the 'English' that comes out of our marketing and communications departments is sometimes shocking. Remember most of them are not English graduates, and thanks to our everyone's-a-winner GCSE system, our schools gave up enforcing linguistic standards a long time ago. You need look no further than this forum for proof... ;)

[Atomic22]

yeh but some of us write perfect queen's when we need to, but use common slang and such in our post's to shorten them, make people understand them etc etc..
some of us aren't english graduate's but went to grammar school's and paid attention in class...
gsce exam's are not even up to the standard of cse exam's from many year's ago , and today's a-level's are not as hard as the gcse's we took "when i were a lad"
ahem

[blackthorn]

I think I`ve got a sort of official answer to this. This states that the word till was used before until.
http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-unt1.htm
BTW I remember the thread on .com but I wasn`t having a go at anyones spelling on here or there. I wouldn`t the old spelling thing to kick off again.

[Atomic22]

hehehe i was havin a laff blackthorn.....i know i write crap on here and miss out commas and the like , things like that seem a waste of time mostly anyways.
i think it will get worse as well because most of the population use txt more than the biro nowadays

[altis]

IMO, a till is the thing at a checkout. If you want to shorten until then it has to be 'til.

IMHO, anything else is wrong.

[erol]

IMO, a till is the thing at a checkout. If you want to shorten until then it has to be 'til.

IMHO, anything else is wrong.

Maybe that's what they mean.

Every night at 8pm there is an open till (and all other times they are closed)

;)

[ian@huth]

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 †œup to.ââ‚Âà ‚¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ÂÂ� 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.

from www.dictionary.com