till - From Ulster to America
Source: From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English
Author: Michael Montgomery
Comments: From Ulster to America recounts the lasting impact eighteenth-century settlers from Ulster have made on the development of the English language of the United States. The book documents over 500 vocabulary items contributed to American English by these ‘Scotch-Irish’ settlers. Each ‘shared’ term with its meaning is authenticated by quotations from both sides of the Atlantic. This searchable online version of his book takes its text from the dictionary part of the second edition published by the Ullans Press in 2017.
till prep, conj [ultimately from Old Norse til ‘to’]
1 prep To (common in Ulster in infinitives (e.g. till go), but in the U.S. primarily used in expressions of time (e.g. quarter till two).
Ulst.:
1737 Murray Letter I was Cook till the Ship aw the Voyage.
1880 Patterson Antrim/Down Glossary 106 = used for to.
1920 McCallin Ulster Plenishing 56 When a bit o’ that same luck does come till a body wanst in a while it’s apt to be the cause of ill-luck till others.
1928 Ervine Mountain 153 If ye want to marry yer daughter til as fine a young fella as there is in this or anny other townlan’ in county Donegal, ye’ll have to give me the three cows an’ the medda beyont Harrison’s farm.
1935 Megaw Carragloon 101 It’s not the newspaper he’s at, but books, without a picture in them from one end till the tother.
1942 Bangor Words 80 = to: ‘Add this one till it’.
1956 Bell Orange Lily 136 He was going to get married and had no house, nor habitation to take his wife till.
1969 Braidwood Ulster Dial Lex 32 quarter till eleven.
1997 Robinson Grammar 68 Telling the time in Ulster-Scots is much the same as in English, except that we have ten efter (rather than ‘past’) echt, and ten til or aff (rather than ‘to’) echt.
2014 Fenton Hamely Tongue 253 = to (‘gan ower till Wattermoy’; ‘gettin ready for till start the prootas’); towards (‘Poo it till ye’); closed: (‘Push the dorr till’).
U.S.:
1829 Kirkham English Grammar 207 Not here the day; he went till Pittsburg.
1868 Brackenridge Recollections 79 May it plase the coort, there is no jail at all till put him in.
1878 Burt Dialects 413 Till is often substituted for to in the Pennsylvania dialect. A horse comes till the stable, or a boy till the school-room.
1949 Kurath Word Geog East US 51 The greater part of … the South Midland [area has] till [in expressions of telling time]. The Midland till has been carried seaward along the Cape Fear and the Peedee rivers and even competes with the Southern to along the Neuse.
2 conj In order that, with the result that, to the point that. [oed till conj B1g ‘indicating purpose: in order that (one) may’ Scottish and Irish; snd till conj II 3 ‘implying purpose: in order that’; dare till conj C1a chiefly South]
Ulst.:
1824 McHenry Insurgent Chief 120 Peggy, bring here the wean till his lordship sees it.
1879 Lyttle Paddy McQuillan 10 Come awa wi’ me till we get a snack, an’ then if ye like A’ll show ye a bit of Glesco.
1897 MacManus Dhroll Donegal 37 Bake me a bannock, cut me a callop, an’ give me yer blissin’ till I go away to push me fortune.
c1910 Byers Glossary = in order that: ‘Come here till I see your eye’.
1910 Joyce English in Ireland 342 = used in many parts of Ireland in the sense of ‘in order that’: ‘Come here Micky till I comb your hair’.
1917 Walsh Guileless Saxon 16 He says he ’ill come downstairs when he has had a smoke till he meets some of the people an’ gets talkin’ to them.
1921 Irvine Poor Folk 54 Come over here till I give ye a taste of me tongue.
1932 Quinn McConaghy’s Money 19 Come on over here till A see ye.
1991 O’Kane You Don’t Say 142 = so that, in order to: ‘Hand me that spade till I clean out this drain’.
2004 Ate Up 32 Where’s the han-churn til I get the soor dook made?
U.S.:
1939 Hall Coll I’d have my mustache to freeze [in the cold weather] till I could hardly get my breath.
1956 Hall Coll The bean beetle got so bad till we stopped growing [beans] here.
1969 GSMNP-25:2:5 Most of the farms … was straight up and down almost or just hillsidey, till it was actually hard farming.
1979 GSMNP-118:2 My mama had rheumatiz. She got till she couldn’t walk and I was thirteen and I had to cook and wash.
