til the turtle escapes and the cows come home

[darkoshi]

Wiktionary: till

Etymology: From Middle English til, from Northern Old English til, from or akin to Old Norse til (“to, till”); both from Proto-Germanic *til (“to, toward”), from Proto-Germanic *tilą (“planned point in time”). Not a shortening of until; rather, until comes from till with the prefix un- (“against; toward; up to”) also found in unto.

Merriam Webster: Until, till, 'til, or 'till?

...till is not a shortening of until. It actually predates the longer word.

Till has been in use in English since the 9th century; the earliest sense of the word was the same as the preposition to. It has been used as a conjunction meaning "until" since the 12th century. Until has been in use as both a preposition and a conjunction for almost as long.

I prefer to write "til" with a single L and no apostrophe because it is easier, and because "till" looks like something a farmer does, or something dealing with money. There's no other word "til" so why shouldn't it be acceptable that way?

Comments

[frith]

We slip in foreign words and phrases all the time so why not a bit of Middle English or Northern Old English? You could even use it in Scrabble since til is in the dictionary as a variation of teel: sesame seed oil.

[darkoshi]

I saw that definition of til/teel in Wiktionary. It is Hindi for the sesame plant & seed, not only for the oil. Most of the Hindi words I recognize are foods, from recipes and from when I've shopped in Indian grocery stores. But I didn't remember that one.

[mellowtigger]

So until is a repeated expression of toward, doubling the idea to exaggerate the intent? Interesting.

[darkoshi]

Yes, it seems so. I had wrongly assumed till was a shortening of until.