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I'm currently learning Dutch which has made me aware of the Dutch word for "before" which is "voor." This is also made me astutely aware that in conversation I often find myself saying "fore" as a nonstandard form of "before." For example, "'Fore we go to the store." "We should look at the account 'fore we do that." I've caught myself doing this on numerous occasions but have not listened to see if others do it. This is noted in my dictionary as a nonstandard form. Can you attest to this in your dialect of English? I'm especially looking for American English attestations.

I've heard "fore" used for "before" though I don't use it myself; I rarely fully pronounce "because," though. It drives my parents crazy.

Yeah, I'm sure I say it occasionally, but not in the conscious way I say 'cause and 'till.

linguoboy wrote:Yeah, I'm sure I say it occasionally, but not in the conscious way I say 'cause and 'till.

Till is probably slightly different as it is a word in its own right; it's only relatively recently that it has been reinterpreted as an abbreviation of until when it was actually the original word.

When it's treated as an abbreviation, shouldn't it be spelt with one L as in "until"?

And I'm going 'to the store. Do you want anything?

it is a possible contraction, but it has not grammaticalized yet

Imralu wrote:When it's treated as an abbreviation, shouldn't it be spelt with one L as in "until"?

And I'm going 'to the store. Do you want anything?

Are you trying to contract "into?" I went over this and in my findings you really can't with "into" or "onto" or "unto." Just as you can't with "below" ("low") unless you want to sound like an old timey ship captain. And "between" ("tween") would also make you sound quaint.

The jury in my opinion is still out on "above" ("bove") and "beneath" ("neath").

Viktor77 wrote:

Imralu wrote:When it's treated as an abbreviation, shouldn't it be spelt with one L as in "until"?

And I'm going 'to the store. Do you want anything?

Are you trying to contract "into?" I went over this and in my findings you really can't with "into" or "onto" or "unto." Just as you can't with "below" ("low") unless you want to sound like an old timey ship captain. And "between" ("tween") would also make you sound quaint.

Unto. It's basically 'to' ... but I guess, thinking about it now, it's only really used for dative uses of to, not allative. So maybe "Can you give that book 'to me?"

If till is not considered a word but a contraction of until (in spite of its etymological history), why not the same for (un)to in all cases when unto can be used?

Just posting to say that in Swedish it's före and till.

All cases of 'till' can be replaced with 'until' without sounding weird, whereas no one says 'unto'. And 'to' isn't even from 'unto' -- if Wiktionary can be trusted, 'unto' actually formed by analogy with 'until'. Etymonline says:

mid-13c., perhaps a modification of until, with southern to in place of northern equivalent till. Or perhaps a contraction of native *und to, formed on the model of until from Old English *un- "up to, as far as," cognate of the first element in until. "Very rare in standard writers of the 18th c.," according to OED, and since then chiefly in dignified, archaic, or Biblical styles.

Then again, 'until' is actually from 'till'.

To me this seems likely to be a result of the general tendency many English speakers have to drop the first syllable in a sentence when unstressed. For instance:

"[I'm] going to the store."
"[You] going to the store?"
"[Where]'s he going?"
"[Be]fore we go to the store."

Sometimes I say fore or afore deliberately to be ironic. Lots of words are super dramatically contracted, if you think about it. For instance, because is often just [ks] (because I'm late, [ksaɪm leɪt]); what's that? might even be [tsæt].

Ziz wrote:Sometimes I say fore or afore deliberately to be ironic.

Are we talking Alanis Morissette irony here or what exactly?

Hipster "ironic."

I've come 'bout the 'breviations.

I'm with Zaarin, I've heard it, and it wouldn't sound weird, but I've never really used it myself. Sounds a bit rural to me.