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Course: Grammar > Unit 5
Lesson 1: Introduction to prepositionsPrepositions of time
Some prepositions help describe moments in time. Learn more and enhance your powers of time wizardry!
Want to join the conversation?
- Is there any difference between till and until?(30 votes)
- Until is more formal (like for writing essays),however, you can still use till for writing(12 votes)
- Is there any difference between till and until?(6 votes)
- No, there is not. Although, I hear most people use "till" for space (distance), and "until" for time.
EX:
"He walked till he got to the local car dealer."
"Samantha read the novel until it was 11 o'clock."
"Till" and "until" are interchangeable. It should be noted, though, that "till" is not an abbreviation of "until", and thus you need no apostrophe. In fact "till" is an older word than "until". It's a misconception that "till" is an abbreviation.
In case you wanted to know, "until" is considered more formal, probably because of the aforementioned misconception.(39 votes)
- Is there any difference between till and until?(9 votes)
- Go to the "sort by" box and set it for "recent", then scroll down. Someone other than me did such an excellent job of answering your question that I suggest you both read it and give them an upvote.(22 votes)
- what is the difference between beyond and beyonds?(9 votes)
- "Beyond" is a preposition of either position or time.
EXAMPLE: "Until 4PM, she'll be at work at the dry cleaning shop. Beyond then, I can't say."
EXAMPLE: "To the top of the ridge, the land is all forest. Beyond there, I can't say.
"Beyond" might also be a noun used to designate a place or time that is far away."
EXAMPLE: "After he left the army, he went away to the great beyond."
"Beyonds" might be a noun for "those areas that are far away in distance or in time."
EXAMPLE: "The chickens were loaded onto a truck bound for the great beyonds."
What I think you might be asking about is the preposition, used incorrectly. People mean "beyond" but say "beyonds." It's kind of how I often type "afterwards" into something and discover a red line under it, because the proper use is "afterward."(12 votes)
- David wants a bat clock. can someone donate him one? 🦇🕛(9 votes)
- I volunteer as tribute🙋♀️(4 votes)
- Whats the difference between by and since?(5 votes)
- "By" means something happens before a certain time. Ex. "I hadn't gotten to the store by 9 pm."
"Since" means something happens from and after a time. Ex. "They won't have eaten since breakfast."
A dictionary might also help you tell the difference.(12 votes)
- we all want a bat clock.(9 votes)
- david is a surprisingly good artist tbh(9 votes)
- someone needs to get david a bat clock :D(9 votes)
- ight, not gonna lie! i ain't complaining or nothing...But this is a little to easy for high school. lol!(5 votes)
- Since the course is "ungraded" (not linked to a grade level), then maybe what you're experiencing is "working beneath your level."(5 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] Hello, Grammarians. We are once again learning
how to master time and become Time Wizards, which is, of course, what you will be if you master all the tenses of English. But, if you want to become
an additional Time Wizard, if you want to get, I don't know, a second hat, because everyone knows
all wizards wear multiple, simultaneous hats. If you want to wear a second hat on top of your other Time Wizard hat, that's the silliest thing I've ever said, then you will have to learn
the Prepositions of Time. Now here's something weird and cool about Prepositions of Time is
that once upon a time all of these were physical prepositions. Like "Before" and "After" just used to mean behind and in front of. They later took on this
additional connotation of time just over the course of
English-Speaking history. People took this literal
meaning of "Before" and "After" and made it representational. This moment occurred in front of this one in time, but behind this other one in time. It's a metaphor. We're using space to represent time. Anyway, I just thought
that was really cool. Let's talk about how all of these work. I'm just going to list
a couple of the most famous Prepositions of Time
and write an example sentence. So let's go through these. "After" and "Before,"
as we've established, these are time relationships that refer to something happening after. So when something is completed, say, "The bats come out
after the sun goes down." And before this occurs
prior to some point in time, so it is behind an action. So you can say, "Can
you take out the garbage "before you leave the house?" "At" is very precise. When we're talking about
"at" we're talking about a single moment in time. We could say, "The
vampire wakes at 10 p.m." There he is emerging from his coffin. There's the, oh that's not the sun. The sun would burn a vampire. No that's a little clock. It's got a tail because it's
like a little wacky cat clock. No, Bat Clock. That doesn't have a tail. It's got a little stubby tail. Doop. Ah, I really want a Bat Clock now. Anyway, okay. "By," this is a really precise end time, but not a very precise beginning time. So you could say something like, "This place had better be
clean by 3 p.m., buddy." If you say something like that, you're not especially
concerned that the place might be clean before three. That would be nice, but it's only relevant to you that the cutoff time is at three o'clock. So the end is precise. That's the connotation there. But the beginning is not. "For" denotes duration. How long something has been going on. So you could say, "I've been a chef for 40 years." I haven't, but that would be cool and difficult. But you know what, this is Khan Academy, you can cook anything. "In" denotes a bounded duration. So it's something that lasts
for a specific amount of time, like a limited period. Okay, so let's just say bounded duration. So that covers usage like, "In March" or "In the Middle Ages." Both of those things are like set periods. March has a beginning and an end. The Middle Ages have a
beginning and an end. It's a bounded duration. "On" has a specific connotation. It's something that
happens on a specific day. You could say something like, "On the 4th of July, "many Americans watch fireworks
and eat encaged meats." Mind you not everybody eats
hot dogs or likes fireworks, so I said many not all. "Since" is kind of like "By" except it's more about the precision of the start point rather than the end point. So, precise beginning. "Since 1974, our company has made "nothing but toasters." "Until" is also precise, but it's a precise ending time. "You have until midnight
to rescue the Ambassador, break the curse and save Prince Wilbur. All right. So there's
a precise ending there. You have "until midnight," and then you can't rescue the Ambassador, break the curse or save any princes. But what you can do is learn anything. These are some of the most
essential Time Prepositions. David out.