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According to The Grammarist: till, until and 'til:

  • Till, as a variant of until, is a preposition meaning up to the time of. Till—not ‘til, an unnecessary abbreviation—has been in the language for centuries, and there’s no reason not to use it.

Actually, until is derived from till as Etymonline explains:

Until

  • c. 1200, from till (prep.). The first element is un- "as far as, up to" (also in unto), from Old Norse *und "as far as, up to," from Proto-Germanic *und- (cognates: Old English oð "up to, as far as.

Till:

  • Old English til (Northumbrian) "to," from Old Norse til "to, until," from Proto-Germanic *tilan (cognates: Danish til, Old Frisian til "to, till," Gothic tils "convenient," German Ziel "limit, end, goal").
  • My question: is there a plausible explanation for the different end spelling of the two prepositions, single l vs double l? Apparently the original term till had a single l in its Old English form. Is it a phonetic issue which makes the sound of till more natural with a double consonant?
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  • The repeated consontant is merely a vestigial orthographic convention (and so not hard-and-fast) reflecting the shortness of the vowel. The Middle English/Late Middle English period is the place to look.
    – TimR
    Commented May 12, 2015 at 11:42
  • So why not in until?
    – user66974
    Commented May 12, 2015 at 11:45
  • As I said, it's vestigial and spotty.
    – TimR
    Commented May 12, 2015 at 11:45
  • 1
    google.com/…
    – TimR
    Commented May 12, 2015 at 12:20
  • 2
    I would rather ask "why does until have a single l?" Allmost all rhyming words have double l: bill, dill, drill, fill, frill, gill, grill, hill, Jill, kill, krill, mill, pill, quill, rill, sill, shill, shrill, still, swill, and will, versus nil and, arguably mil.
    – phoog
    Commented May 12, 2015 at 13:17

2 Answers 2

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My German grammar says in compounds and derivations of one-syllable words ending with -ll such as

  • all fill full skill till

one l is dropped in British English as in

  • almost although to fulfil (AmE to fulfill) skilful fully until

ll remains before -ness: dullness fullness

Source: Adolf Lamprecht, Grammatik der englischen Sprache. Publisher Cornelsen. Page 343.

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Till and Til are most likely different because the concept of standardized spelling wasn't really thought of when the word was coined. Till was most likely the more popular spelling during the time.

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