James – you’re right. I tend to use till but I didn’t know the background. So was that Bar Staff 1 Cambridge Intellectual 0?

Rachel – Thanks. Groups would have been clearer. I think it was brief to fit on a slide. A comma after threes might have made it a bit clearer.

I have to say though, in that first example, I’d have gone with “In groups of three” instead of “In threes.” I read that sentence four times and still didn’t know what it meant. Apostrophes aside, go with clarity.

Great post!

“How can they make such an obvious mistake?” she asked me.

On inquiring what she meant I was brusquely informed that a till is something one finds in a shop and that the sign should read “Open 1 ’til 11.”

This, at the time, made considerable sense. Till could well be a shortening of until with an l added to “make it look right” but I discovered later that things are not that simple.

Till is not only a word in its own right but is also apparently considerably older than the synonymous until. The shortening ’til has relatively recently sprung into being purely because people came to the conclusion that till is a shortening of until and therefore requires an apostrophe. Now ’til is acceptable but really needn’t exist.

My point in all this waffle is that, to my mind, the key difficulty is knowing when letters have been removed. This is helped by an understanding of the background but I don’t think it would have made much difference in this case.

Yes the rule is simple but its correct application can require non-trivial knowledge of language and the cost for incorrect usage is apparently the creation of acceptable word usage that further confuses matters for generations of cocktail bar sign appraisers to come.

- J

“James’s blog” but “Jesus’ disciples” and “cats’ whiskers” – I know James is singular but it’s a much uglier spelling…

I think words ending in ‘ss’ are confusing for much the same reason.