On Tomorrow

Sharon, I'm not trying to be mean, but while we're on the topic of correcting people's grammar, don't you mean "too bad"?

In my observation, I have never heard a white redneck in the South say, “on tomorrow.”

It is a southern black thing. As previously mentioned, it's usually used by public school teachers or administrators. In their efforts to overcome negative stereotypes about their intelligence and speech patterns they over enunciate and add extra words. It's tragic that they're trying so hard not to use Ebonics but just end up sounding ignorant anyway. And what teacher is going to have the courage to go up and correct their principal?

I am from Tennessee and have lived among rural as well as urban populations. I've also lived in N. Dakota and Kentucky. However, I had never heard this expression until I began working in metro Atlanta schools. The first time I heard it was from an administrator. Since that time, I hear it almost daily and always from African-Americans from the south. Recently a young African-American student from the N.E. informed her classmate who had used the expression that there was no such usage as "on tomorrow." Certainly this may have "hung around" since the early 17th century when slaves learned English from owners of that era. Still, it would seem that an educated person would have learned verb usage and would demonstrate good English usage especially in a school setting. After 10 years of hearing this term, I still cringe. Growing up I thought a good education should evoke some kind of change in a person. But I meet many masters and PH.D degreed persons who I would never guess had an extensive college education. To bad really, especially as they are educators.

I am as Southern as they come in Charleston South Carolina and I have happened upon this site in a search to find why people say on when referring to tomorrow. I have a few colleagues that use this phrase not just in their speech, but they will write it as well. It is an awkward use of our language and it is NOT a Southern thing. It is simply a mis-taught, or better yet learned, use of the language and is no more correct than ain't, idn't, and y'all... which ARE all a Southern thing!!! but do not sound so ridiculous as 'on tomorrow.'

Sadly, On Tomorrow is alive and well in Central Florida. I moved from PA to Florida to work in the school system and was horrified when I heard teachers and principals using the term. It horrifies me!

I teach at a historically black school in South Carolina, and it is very common.

i have certainly heard it in Atlanta!

It's not a Southern thing; it's a "stupid" thing.

It's not an African-American dialect for all of you who have assumed such a position. It's more a regional dialect and drives me crazy! I am an African-American from New England from a very affluent Maryland family. We abhor the grammatically incorrect phrase. My english studies has always deemed the phrase "on tomorrow" grossly incorrect. But I've observed colleged educated (many many teachers) Baltimore/DC metro area people of all ethnicities and cultures using the phrase. The experience is like nails on the chalkboard to me as well. But truly, it's not a big deal. :)

I am a native Philadelphian, and am currently a senior at a university in Washington, DC. Until I came here I'd never heard it. It's nails on a chalkboard to me! I quite literally cringe everytime I hear it, and it seems as though I do several times each day.

I have a principal that says on tomorrow on the loudspeaker during announcements almost every day. It drives me NUTS! I want to run up there and give him a grammar lesson every day. Perhaps I will... on tomorrow. Eeeekkkk!!!

He is of African-American decent. It is a Southern Black thing. It is incorrect.

I like Angela G's answer. She is correct: "tomorrow" descends from "on the morrow." As such, "on tomorrow" is grammatically redundant. I'd like to think "on tomorrow" means "on t'morrow," but that usage went bye-bye in the 16th century.

I suspect that "on tomorrow" is a regionalism—a southern one, judging from the comments. I am a fan of regional talk. It both enriches the language and lets you know you are someplace else.

I live in New Orleans and I have never heard it before I moved here and got the current job I have. Every so often it shows up in company emails and it drives me bananas. So much that I googled it to see if I could find anything.

"We will have a meeting on tomorrow Thursday."

I originally thought it was Outlook with a very bad error in the grammar/spell check suggesting it but nope.

Easily the most annoying thing ever. And its not just one person at work, its several.

I have been hearing this phrase for several years now. Unfortunately, I hear it from teachers and school administrators of African-American decent. I'm not sure if it is cultural or not - but I agree that it is incorrect grammar and should never be used in a school setting.

I attended high school in Marietta, GA, and my homeroom teacher said "on tomorrow." She is the only person I have encountered that used the phrase in conversation. It always made me feel better about myself whenever she used it.

Wow. I'm sorry that I needed people like her to feel better about myself.

Although, I think it would be hilarious if the South revived "on the morrow." It would make life a little more interesting.

I have heard this "on tomorrow" so many times here in Georgia and I want to correct those who say it and don't know how, since I feel people would be embarrassed. But it grinds me the same way it does you. How do we get the word out that "tomorrow" and "yesterday" is simply all you need to say, especially in those church announcements.

I am a native South Carolinian living in south Georgia, and not until the past 6 months have I heard this usage. I have been Googling it for several months; that is how I came upon this discussion. From the above posts, it seems to be a form of speech that has been migrating across the country.

I work at LSU and one of my colleagues says "on tomorrow." She started in my department a month or two ago. I hadn't heard that phrase before I met her. It drives me bananas!

I live in Mobile, Alabama and have heard this phrase said by the older teachers at my high school, and I hate it! All of my peers would snicker whenever a teacher would say it, so I don't think it is spreading to the youth, atleast not where I live. I lived in South Florida for 13 years and have never heard the phrase uttered, not even as a mistake. I'm assuming it will mostly be heard in the bible-belt.

As for "on tomorrow" being for the older people in the south, the kids my age don't say they "live" somewhere, they say they "stay" somewhere. After I moved here from florida, someone asked me where I stayed and I had no idea what they were talking about,but they were simply asking me where I lived!

I thought that the usage of the phrase was a regional issue until I heard an MSNBC reporter use it yesterday. It's a growing trend and technically, it is grammatically incorrect.
Here's why:

The most common misuse of the phrase "on tomorrow" occurs where "tomorrow" is used as an adverb in a sentence, i.e.: "I'll return this report to you on tomorrow." Adverbs can not be the object of a preposition.

Part of speech is dependant on function within the sentence. If a word is used as an adverb and is acting as an adverb in the sentence structure, then it is an adverb.

The word "tomorrow" already includes the IMPLIED prepositions "on" or "to" and was once written as "to morrow". Later, hyphens were added (to-morrow) and then eventually, the words were joined without the hypen (tomorrow). "Yesterday", "Today" and "Tomorrow" do not require the preposition "on" for the same reason. "On the morrow" is already implied with the word "tomorrow". Adding "on" or "to" is redundant.

Generally, the preposition "on" is paired with holidays, specific days of the week, or dates. This has been the practice from Old English to the present.

Examples: on Christmas; on Bastille Day; on Friday; on Monday; on May 15th; on October 2, 2009.......

Had the sentence read "On the morrow, I will return this report to you", it would have been a correct, albeit obsolete, use of the phrase "on tomorrow".

I hope this clarifies the matter. For the record, I live and work in Memphis. I hear the phrase daily.........and it makes me cringe every time! I thought it a reflection of the local school system. Should I be glad it isn't just a local trend?

(I'm more and more thankful for the private school education I received! I think my parents daily!)

Sounds like it's just an old-fashioned way of saying things that got stuck in some crevices. I like old-fashioned verbiage, idiom, regional dialect... but I find Brooklyn accents odious to the point of occasionally switching off the radio in horror, so I can't tell other people what to dislike about a switch in regional style.

This is a commonly used phrase in India, by people who do not speak good (correct) English.

When I think of the preposition 'on', I am reminded that people often use it in the place of 'upon'. Were 'on' in that phrase to be replaced with 'upon', it would seem to make more sense. "Upon dawn," for example, would mean, "when dawn occurs." But "upon tomorrow," or even, "when tomorrow occurs," makes hardly any sense, because I doubt the time they are referring to is 12:00 AM. There are some removed instances when using such a phrase can be correct, but generally, it seems to be a misuse of prepositions.

I think that way back when (I am not sure how far back), people would have said "on the morrow" where we would now say "tomorrow." I wonder if "tomorrow" actually evolved as an elision of "the morrow." The Shakespeare quote given above may represent a sort of half way point in the evolution of the modern word, and perhaps "on tomorrow" is a slightly later stage, and thus not a new form but an older one.

On second thoughts, I wonder if these Georgians you are talking about might really be saying "on the morrow," and (perhaps because of the unfamiliar accent) you are mishearing it. "Morrow" still appears in modern dictionaries, although it is usually marked as literary, archaic, or obsolete (but maybe not so much in Georgia).

I'm from Hong Kong and people use the phrase very often. Maybe this a Hong Kong thing but is now spreading over to the US.

I have lived in Texas all my life. I am also a school teacher. I had never heard the phrase until last year when our new principal used it in a faculty meeting. Many of us thought it was just a slip-up. However, since then we have added a new counselor who always uses the phrase. I don't know where it came from or how it got started but it is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Maybe it's a sign that you should move back Nawth.

I live outside Nashville, TN and I have yet to hear someone utter the words "on tomorrow" or "on yesterday." I have often heard "on the weekend" or "on Thursday."

I don't know how far south the expression goes, but I have heard many people say it in Kentucky.

Let me revise: "on" is used with other expressions of time:
I work on weekends.
I work weekends.
Let's get together Thursday.
Let's get together on Thursday.

We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.
March to the bridge; it now draws toward night:
Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,
And on to-morrow, bid them march away.
- Henry V, act III scene vi

The OED notes that "on" is "Now also (esp. U.S. and Irish English) used with tomorrow, yesterday, etc., app. redundantly". I think they say it's redundant because etymologically "tomorrow" already contains the preposition "to".

But as the Shakespeare quote shows it's quite an old usage. And "on" is used with other expressions of time, for instance "on the weekend", "on nights", where just "the weekend" and "nights" could be used without any confusion.

Some usage books complain about it, tho.

I have never heard such an aurally odious phrase! I went to high school in Texas and have never heard (or spoken) such a phrase. If it is a Southern thing, it must have not made it this south. :)

Also, I agree--"we will have a staff meeting tomorrow" sound fine...and is grammatically correct!