Friday, 26 October 2007
Hand in the T(r)ill*
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A very interesting one, till.
The matter is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for 'Till Death Do Us Part', and it seems the Beeb has often been confused too:
The BBC, which broadcast the series, refers to the title differently in different locations. The 2004 DVD release uses two 'l's. Even the show's creator referred to it differently on occasions. But "'til" (with an apostrophe) is simply an erroneous twentieth-century rendering of "till", due to the mistaken impression that this is a short form of "until", itself in reality an unnecessary Middle English lengthening of the original (and still perfectly good) word "till". (This lengthening is taken even further in the phrase "up until".) The show's title and that of its sequel were both taken from the traditional wedding vow:
"I N. take thee N. to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth."
Till next time.
*This refers to one of my favourite jokes: "A mate of mine worked in a pet shop but he just got the sack. Yeah, he got caught with his hand in the Trill".
The matter is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for 'Till Death Do Us Part', and it seems the Beeb has often been confused too:
The BBC, which broadcast the series, refers to the title differently in different locations. The 2004 DVD release uses two 'l's. Even the show's creator referred to it differently on occasions. But "'til" (with an apostrophe) is simply an erroneous twentieth-century rendering of "till", due to the mistaken impression that this is a short form of "until", itself in reality an unnecessary Middle English lengthening of the original (and still perfectly good) word "till". (This lengthening is taken even further in the phrase "up until".) The show's title and that of its sequel were both taken from the traditional wedding vow:
"I N. take thee N. to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth."
Here is the 'Till' entry in my 1955 Oxford Dictionary:
Till next time.
*This refers to one of my favourite jokes: "A mate of mine worked in a pet shop but he just got the sack. Yeah, he got caught with his hand in the Trill".
Labels: 'til, BBC, grammar, spelling, till, till death do us part, wikipedia
posted by Dan at 12:35 pm
4 Comments
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