[split] The Nothing

[rayheinrich]

The truly lazy person's " until " is not " 'til ", it's " til ". Not only can we
conserve our valuable energies by not typing the apostrophe; we can
effortlessly enjoy the thrashing about of energetic fools as they busy
themselves with incorrectly correcting the uncorrectable.

probably true, but I like to follow the contraction conventions set by can't, don't and won't. 

I think I read a line in someone's poem once that was something like:

the man worked till the earth was raw

which made me think 

"till the earth was raw" - that is terrible grammar
when he meant "'til the earth was raw"

I think you can see the difficulty of my situation.

Milo, I know you don't like Merriam-Webster's authority, but till, til and 'til are all acceptable contractions of until.  

To be clearer: Milo wasn't saying they weren't acceptable to an appreciable segment of
the great unwashed, he was expressing his own personal preferences (and ones that,
possessing superior linguistic sensibilities as well, I agree with).

But, as one possessing superior linguistic sensibilities, I can't help but point out that " till " is not
a contraction of "until". " Till* " is its very own word, predates "until" by a few hundred years, and is
quite probably the word from which "until" descended.

As sincere as ever,
Ray


*And, as I've said previously:

And as for 'till', yes, I try to avoid homonyms as they add confusion and
lend themselves too easily to doggerel:

He'll till the earth, his plow the devil's claw;
He'll till the earth, he'll till it till it's raw.

He'll till the earth, he'll till it to its core;
He'll till the earth till it will till no more.