Similarly, till is a word of its own, not a truncation of until. So don't go writin' 'til or 'till.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Save Your Apostrophes
One meaning of round is "around." So there's no need for apostrophizin' in "round-the-clock service" or "shot heard round the world."
Similarly, till is a word of its own, not a truncation of until. So don't go writin' 'til or 'till.
Similarly, till is a word of its own, not a truncation of until. So don't go writin' 'til or 'till.
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4 comments:
Hi, Bill. I came across your blog again when researching the idiocy of the phrase "homicide bomber." You had a nice piece here. I would add that using this stupid phrase not only violates something one learns the second day of news writing class—that to call it a "tragic death" or a "tragic accident" is horribly redundant—but it actually leaches the language of news value. What makes these people frightening is that they want to die. It's why September Eleventh worked and why the problem is so pervasive and perplexing that George W. Bush has felt empowered and required to step it up a notch. The word "suicide" in "suicide bombers" is, specifically, what differentiates them and their tactics from those who just pack up a Ryder with fertilizer and walk away. Remove it and you're left with just the egg whites.
Anyway, thank you for your continued work. I'll continue checking this site and I will need to add more Bill Walsh volumes as a companion to the AP Stylebook. Sorry this post is rather irrelevant to this entry, which I found interesting. You don't know how many times I've edited in those single apostrophe marks.
Until and till are completely interchangeable, though, correct? There's no shade of difference in meaning?
MuPu has cross-pollinated and multi-langued himself cross-eyed and stumble-tongued. "Until" is NOT a truncation of English "up till". It is from the Middle English "until", where the "un" comes from the Norse for "up to" and "til" is the Old English that became modern "till". So ['til] and ['till] are unnecessary and etymologically ignorant. If you aren't writing Old English, it woud make more sense to write [til']. In any case, if "til" ever becomes accepteable, it will be not a case of evolution but of reversion.
Not knowing what Aaron is referring to in scorning "tragic accident," I'll leave it alone. But, clearly, "tragic death" makes a useful distinction. When my father died, quickly and without much pain, having, as far as I know, lived a reasonably happy life for 88 years, it was sad, but hardly tragic.
When my son's best friend died at 21, it was tragic, and heart-wrenching.
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