| 词组 | till, until, 'til |
| 释义 | till, until, 'til Till and until are both venerable words, and are both highly respectable. The notion that till is a short form of until is erroneous: till is actually the older word, dating back to at least the 9th century. Until was first recorded around 1200. The relative status of these words in current usage is discussed briefly in most handbooks. Both are invariably found to be acceptable, but until is often said to have a somewhat more formal quality than till, and to be the more likely choice at the beginning of a sentence or clause. In general, our evidence supports those observations. Note, however, that till, although less common than until, can still be perfectly at home in highly serious writing and at the beginning of a sentence: • ... initiate change instead of responding to pressures, or waiting till revolution has destroyed the seam of its structure —Calvin H. Plimpton, Amherst College Bulletin, November 1967 • ... the outsider's role that had always been his, and that he would play with mounting intensity till he died —Walter Kendrick, N.Y. Times Book Rev., 3 Apr. 1983 • Till she got through, he would have to hide his face —Conrad Richter, The Trees, 1940 • Till recently, the only important structure in Philadelphia was the PSFS Building —Lewis Mumford, New Yorker, 26 May 1956 The other subject of concern to usage commentators is the status of 'til, a form that has been variously described as "correct in standard English" (Shaw 1970), "absurd" (Simon 1980), "poetic" (Corder 1981), "superfluous" (Bernstein 1971), and "acceptable only in informal writing" (Harper 1975, 1985). What 'til is, unargu-ably, is a variant spelling of till used by writers who do not know that till is a complete, unabbreviated word in its own right. Use of 'til is undoubtedly common in casual writing, and it does turn up in edited prose on occasion: • ... the overemphasis placed upon its limitations has 'til now managed to inhibit its needed expansion — George N. Torrey & Richard P. Finn, Massachusetts Teacher, January 1965 But if you are writing for publication, you will do well to spell it till. |
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