Till, We Meet Again

I don't like to be proven wrong, although it does happen from time to time (read: a lot). Generally, I idiotically stake a claim about a certain grammar rule and Matt, my resident correction expert, sets me straight. A couple years ago, he taught me the truth about the word till and set me on a feverish quest to rid the world of the evil and menacing 'til, which I'd once admired with a sort of holier-than-thou naivety. I used to be pretty proud of myself when I added that apostrophe. It was as if I was telling the world, "Yes, I realize the un- is missing and so I've taken careful consideration to notate it with this glorious punctuation mark." Unfortunately, I was oh so wrong.






Here are the facts: Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition lists till as a conjunction for until; The Associated Press Stylebook actually asks that you use till or until, but not 'til; and Garner's Modern American Usage coins the word as "a bona fide preposition and conjunction" and goes on to describe how it's "neither colloquial nor substandard," although it's been treated as such for years.

That's probably much more than you ever wanted to know about till. But I hope that if this is a startling revelation for you—as it was for me—it lessens the blow a little. And, of course, if you'd rather avoid the argument altogether, simply go with until.