Thread: Has been working since... till...

If I write something like this:

The Horns and Hooves company ltd hereby certifies that Mr. Ostap Bender has been working for us since October, 25 1917 till present time.

Does that imply that he still works or should I clarify further?

I would pass "till present time" at all.

Yeah, you already have "has been working" and the word "since" to signify a continuing situation, so "til present time" would be redundant.

Just to mention - till is very informal. I would use the full word "until."

Note that there is a verb and a noun "till" with completely different meanings.

Originally Posted by ZelyeUrsuli

Just to mention - till is very informal. I would use the full word "until."

Common misconseption, and not true at all. Until is more common especially as the first word in a sentence, but till has been in the language far longer and is in no way a contraction or abbreviation of until, just the opposite.

Originally Posted by scotcher

Originally Posted by ZelyeUrsuli

Just to mention - till is very informal. I would use the full word "until."

Common misconseption, and not true at all. Until is more common especially as the first word in a sentence, but till has been in the language far longer and is in no way a contraction or abbreviation of until, just the opposite.

You serious? I learnt that "till" it spoken/informal and in written language you should use "until". Just checked Longman dictionary of contemporary English and it's said that "till" is spoken.

What a fascinating conversation, you've just opened my eyes. I thought that till and until is two different words. In Russian, the word 'till' is generally translated as '(до тех пор) пока' while 'until' is translated as '(до тех пор) пока не' - so they bear opposite meanings to me. Can they really be a substitution for each other?

Originally Posted by net surfer

Originally Posted by scotcher

Originally Posted by ZelyeUrsuli

Just to mention - till is very informal. I would use the full word "until."

Common misconseption, and not true at all. Until is more common especially as the first word in a sentence, but till has been in the language far longer and is in no way a contraction or abbreviation of until, just the opposite.

You serious? I learnt that "till" it spoken/informal and in written language you should use "until". Just checked Longman dictionary of contemporary English and it's said that "till" is spoken.

Yeah I'm serious.

Til (sometimes 'til) is an informal abbreviation of until. It's totally redundant but fairly common even in informal written English.

Till isn't an abbreviation of anything, but because it is pronounced exactly the same as 'til it is often wrongly treated as one.

Originally Posted by Ramil

What a fascinating conversation, you've just opened my eyes. I thought that till and until is two different words. In Russian, the word 'till' is generally translated as '(до тех пор) пока' while 'until' is translated as '(до тех пор) пока не' - so they bear opposite meanings to me. Can they really be a substitution for each other?

They are different words, but they're totally interchangaeble in all senses in modern English, though that wouldn't have been the case originally. In fact I'd guess that your Russian translations would be pretty close to showing the original distinction, but subsequent changes in English grammar has rendered it meaningless.

scotcher

I'm confused.

ZelyeUrsuli: Just to mention - till is very informal.
You: Common misconseption, and not true at all (i.e. it's not informal)
Me: are you sure "till" is not informal?
You: Yeah I'm serious. Till isn't an abbreviation of anything, but because it is pronounced exactly the same as 'til it is often wrongly treated as one.

So is it informal or not?

Originally Posted by net surfer

scotcher

I'm confused.

ZelyeUrsuli: Just to mention - till is very informal.
You: Common misconseption, and not true at all (i.e. it's not informal)
Me: are you sure "till" is not informal?
You: Yeah I'm serious. Till isn't an abbreviation of anything, but because it is pronounced exactly the same as 'til it is often wrongly treated as one.

So is it informal or not?

No, it's not informal, at least not in the sense ZelyeUrsuli meant. It's not slang or, as ZelyeUrsuli implied, an abbreviation of until, it's a perfectly good English word in its own right.

Stylistically until is both more common in general and more likely to be found in formal contexts in particular, but that's a question of aesthetics and has no bearing at all on whether Ramil's use of till deserved a correction.

Sorry!

What I thought Ramil was writing was some sort of business statement.

To me, "until" would look better in such a statement because till seems much more informal. Maybe it isn't...but there are my two pennies for ya!

Originally Posted by scotcher

Stylistically until is both more common in general and more likely to be found in formal contexts in particular, but that's a question of aesthetics and has no bearing at all on whether Ramil's use of till deserved a correction.

I believe Ramil is writing/translating an official paper (maybe for some embassy) so I thought that more formal "until" fits in with the context better than more informal "till".

Originally Posted by net surfer

Originally Posted by scotcher

Stylistically until is both more common in general and more likely to be found in formal contexts in particular, but that's a question of aesthetics and has no bearing at all on whether Ramil's use of till deserved a correction.

I believe Ramil is writing/translating an official paper (maybe for some embassy) so I thought that more formal "until" fits in with the context better than more informal "till".

You're entitled to think that and I'm entitled to disagree, so where's the problem?

Since it was previously established that the whole clause is redundant anyway the correctness of the word itself isn't even important, it's just a semi-interesting diversion.

Entitled to disagree with what? That Ramil's writing an official paper or that "util" fits better with that context? And there's no problem, I'm just trying to figure out if it's good to use "till" in official papers.

Originally Posted by net surfer

Entitled to disagree with what?

With this:

so I thought that more formal "until" fits in with the context better than more informal "till".

I disagree with that.

And there's no problem, I'm just trying to figure out if it's good to use "till" in official papers.

Well, that's up to you.

I don't really care whether you do or you don't, all I've done is present my own position on the subject which, just to be clear, is the following:

I am aware that there's a common misconception that "till" is an abbreviation of "until" and should therefore be treated as informal. Since it is a misconception it wouldn't prevent me, personally, from using it, in fact it might even make me use it slightly more often out of spite, however it is such a common a misconception that I can completely understand why another writer might choose to avoid using it.

I would say scotcher has presented more than his own position on the subject. An American source agrees with him:

till / until
You can use till and until interchangeably in both writing and speech, though as the first word in a sentence until is more common: Until you get that paper written, don’t even think about going to the movies.
If you’ve always thought that till is a shortened form of until, stop. As prepositions meaning “up to,” both words appeared around 1200; the conjunction till is about 70 years older, with until not being used in this way until 1300. Till itself comes from a very old Old English word til, “to.” Until was formed from till by the addition of the prefix un-, which meant “up to.” So etymologically at least, until is a self-contained redundancy, meaning “up to up to.”
The mistaken impression that till is a clipped form also has a few gray hairs. People started spelling it with an apostrophe in the 18th century, indicating they believed it to be a shortened form of until. Although ’till is now nonstandard, ’til is sometimes used in this way. It is a modern invention, dating from 1939, and is considered acceptable. But why bother with apostrophes when you can do without?

The American Heritage(R) Book of English Usage 137 (1996) http://www.bartleby.com/64/pages/page137.html

scotcher, ну вот и поговорили :)

I didn't know about that misconception and I don't know why you're so concerned about it. To me it was a question about formal/informal not about full/abbreviation but oh well... проехали

I'm not concerned about anything. I made a casual comment disagreeing with something Z said and you spent the next ten posts asking me to explain my disagreement.