Grammar Girl here. I'm Inion Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. I regularly

receive questions from people who are confused about the words until, till spelled T-I-L, and

till with an apostrophe at the beginning, T-I-L. T-I-L with an apostrophe at the beginning T-I-L.

When you're talking about a period of time that has to last before something happens,

Till, T-I-L, and Until are equivalent.

Don't believe it? Check a dictionary.

Some sources say that until sometimes has a more formal sound than till,

but often the two words are just interchangeable. Here are two examples. We spun in circles

until we were dizzy. We ran till we were breathless. And till, T-I-L, isn't a contraction of Until either. They are two separate words. Until actually came first. It's the older word first used in the 12th century. People didn't start using until until the 13th century. Nearly all the style guides I checked recommended against using Till with an

apostrophe at the beginning TIL. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English language

says the form is etymologically incorrect. The Chicago Manual of Style says it should not be written T.I.L. with an

apostrophe. And Garner's modern English usage calls it incorrect with no literary history.

In fact, Garner says people didn't even start thinking till with an apostrophe was okay until the

1980s. So it's quite a recent thing. Many style guides also

go out of their way to emphasize that Till, T-I-L, is fine, which is often a clue that at some

point people said it wasn't. And given that I've had to answer questions about disputes over the

word, I think that if you want to

completely avoid controversy, it's safest to stick with until. But I'll do my part and say there's

absolutely nothing wrong with Till. Now, one final interesting thing is the etymology of Till.

We've been talking about the preposition and conjunction,

but of course it's also a verb that means to work dirt, as in to till the land, and a noun

that means a box or drawer that holds money, as in put your money in the cash register till.

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