to-day, to-night
I have seen to-day and to-night used in literature up to the 1920′s. When and why did this become obsolete?
Submit Your Comment
©2020 CYCLE Interactive, LLC.
All Rights Reserved.
Your Pain Is Our Pleasure
24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with passion. Learn More
"Are you lonesome tonight?" was written in 1926, but Elvis Presley called it "Are you lonesome to-night?" in 1960.
tiigerrick Sep-12-2011
0 vote Permalink Report Abuse
My guess is that sometime in the 20s-30s the hyphen was viewed more and more as a cumbersome and superfluous fillip and thus dispensed with.
We're seeing a similar to-and-fro with "e-mail" and "email" (I use the latter myself).
JJMBallantyne Mar-03-2011
1 vote Permalink Report Abuse
The OED has the spelling "to-day" up to 1912. But it was also spelled without the hyphen as early as the 1700s.
goofy Feb-23-2011
0 vote Permalink Report Abuse
The 1920's?
Red1 Feb-22-2011
3 votes Permalink Report Abuse