Til v. till v. til v.

until
http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/til-v-till-v-til-vuntil/
My roommate asked me how to spell the first word of Till death do us
part (for reasons that I dont fully recall, but it definitely wasnt
because we were starting some odd sort of relationship). We agreed
there were three possibilities:
til, till, til
I quickly responded that til was the logical choice, a truncation of
until, with the missing un marked by an apostrophe. Open-and-shut
case. Except that it wasnt. It kept gnawing at me. Had I seen people
use till in that context? Why would they do that? So I made the same
mistake I often do, and I looked into exactly what the deal was. First
off, lets look at some proponents of each form:
Tils:
Til Tuesday, Aimee Manns semi-pivotal 80s band.
Til Death, Brad Garretts follow-up to Everybody Loves Raymond.
Waiting Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in
America.
Tills:
Till Death Us Do Part, British sitcom that paved the way for All in the
Family.
From Dusk Till Dawn, movie featuring Salma Hayek dancing and (so it
is rumored) some other plot as well.
(Til is hard to find attestations of people seem to be pretty good at
remembering to put apostrophes at the words when the first syllable is
removed.) So why would anyone spell it till if its coming from until?
Well, it turns out that till isnt derived from until. Till and til are
actually two different words with two different etymologies. Till is the
earlier form, attested as early as 1330; Until is actually derived from
till, not the other way around as in til (a backformation which showed
up much later). Both are common, so its up to you which one you like.
Till is commoner in Scotland, where it can be used like dative to in
some situations, while til is commoner in the U.S. Take your pick.

Until, Till, and 'Til

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/until-till-and-til?
page=all
I regularly receive questions from people who are confused about "till,"
"until," and " 'til."

When you're talking about a period of time that must lapse before
something happens, "till" and "until" are equivalent. Don't believe it?
Check a dictionary. "Till" actually came first, and "until" followed more
recently.
We spun in circles until we were dizzy.
We ran till we were breathless.
" 'Til" is also an acceptable shortened form of "until," but the American
Heritage Dictionary of the English Language says the form is
etymologically incorrect.

Until, till and til

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-unt1.htm
Q:
I have always believed that the shortened form of until was til.
However, my father recently asked me for my thoughts, as someone
had tried to convince him it should be spelled till as in eight till late.
On consulting his dictionary, that was indeed the only definition that
could be found. We would be very grateful if you could clear up this
situation for us.
A:
The status of til versus until and till is often argued about and most
style guides have something to say on the matter.
The most common belief is that till is a shortened form of until. You
can see how this could have grown up, but the truth of the matter is
that till is by far the older word, being recorded from about the year
800, while it took another 400 years for until to appear in the
language (its a compound of till with the archaic Old Norse und, as far
as, which also survives in the archaic unto). But the first sense of till
was to, as it still can be, for example, in Scots and some dialects.
Though the modern sense of till in standard English is always
connected with time, this only appeared about 1300.
The current position is that until is the more common of the two words
and is generally considered to be slightly more formal, which is why it
turns up more often in edited prose. It is also rather more likely to
appear at the beginning of a sentence than is till. But till is perfectly
good English and the choice of whether to use it or until is often
decided by the rhythm of the sentence.
Your fathers version, til, has been created within the past century by
people who believe that till is an abbreviation of until and want to
mark it as such. It has often been said by style guides and dictionaries
that its a mistake and it arouses passion in some people. Most recent

writers on language prefer to describe it as an informal version of until

it often turns up in newspapers, advertising and song lyrics, for
example, and in informal set phrases like shop til you drop, It aint
over til its over or Til we meet again. But to use the spelling til
without the preceding apostrophe is still regarded as wrong.
There is really only one usage I can think of where you would not use
till: in setting up a negative conditional.
Until my landlord fixes the plumbing, I am not going to pay the rent.
I am not going to pay the rent until my landlord fixes the plumbing.
Here it would sound strange to use till, and I'm not really sure why.
Perhaps it is the negative.

What is the difference between till and until?

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6989/what-is-thedifference-between-till-and-until
What is the difference between till and until?
When to use till or until?
In a nutshell, they can be used interchangeably in most situations, with
the obvious exception of fixed phrases such as "Till death do us part".
Some people will object to "till" (as being too informal or whatever),
but only for entirely made-up reasons (such as that "till" is a careless
abbreviation of "until" or something, which is simply wrong; "till" is
actually the older of the two words, and "until" was derived from it
rather than the other way round).
Till is indeed older and the two can be used pretty much
interchangeably.
There is really only one usage I can think of where you would not use
till: in setting up a negative conditional:
Until my landlord fixes the plumbing, I am not going to pay the rent.
I am not going to pay the rent until my landlord fixes the plumbing.
Here it would sound strange to use till, and I'm not really sure why.
Perhaps it is the negative.
One more thing. Sometimes you will see people spell till as a
contraction of until: that is, as 'til. This is simply wrong, and not seen
outside of old poetry and modern greeting cards aiming for a "poetic"
tone. Anywhere you see 'til being used, till would be the correct word.