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What is the difference between “till” and “until”?

Please kindly advise me on the correct usage of till/until when talking about period of time. For example:

This offer is valid from Apr 21st until/till Apr 28th.

Also, I would be grateful if you could tell me what variants are possible if I want to squeeze this phrase into a small area? How can I make it shorter? That is, what parts can be omitted? The suffixes (st, th)? For example:

Apr 21 - 28

Community
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Cindy
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2 Answers2

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Till and until are completely interchangeable. To also works here.

Just use an en dash between numbers for ranges: “Apr 21–28”. Do not use a hyphen (-). Do not use an em dash (—). Use an en dash (–) only.

tchrist
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You need something to separate the two dates. You can't just say, "from April 21st April 28th".

The most common thing to put between them is the word "to".

If you're writing full sentences, like "We agreed that we would schedule the convention to occur from ...", I think you need to put a word between the two dates, like "to" or "until" or "through". But if you're writing a title or a heading, you can condense it to "April 21 - 28". Or "Apr 21-28" if you're pressed for space, like in a column heading.

Jay
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  • Oh, really? You mean I can freely write all the following variants? "from April 21 till April 28" or "from April 21 to April 28" or even "from April 21 through April 28"? – Cindy Sep 26 '12 at 16:41
  • @Cindy: Yes, you can. And you could also say, "beginning on April 21st, and continuing through April 28th." There are plenty of variants. – J.R. Sep 26 '12 at 16:50
  • Two other points worth making, about this. To use the word "through" instead of until or to, is a feature of American English. See: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/30927/translation-for-dutch-tot-en-met-until-and-including/75040#75040 – Tristan Sep 27 '12 at 16:41
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    As is the practice of putting the month before the day, when mentioning a date. See: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/70122/how-do-i-formally-speak-dates/70146#70146 – Tristan Sep 27 '12 at 16:43