0

Lately somewhere I heard an announcement on a train stop that sounded a bit wrong. Then I put some different words to fix it but now I feel unsure about all the alterations.

  1. Please do not cross the yellow line till the train stops completely.

  2. Please do not cross the yellow line until the train stops completely.

  3. Please do not cross the yellow line before the train stops completely.

Which are right, which aren't, and why?

To me, only before sounds right but I can only say that because of instincts. Would like to know the right way. I tried looking for until-before differences but I couldn't relate any to this specific case.

Improve this question
1
  • One possible source of confusion is the way I have seen until used in InE, as if it meant as long as. This led, among other things, to a pretty funny promise from a company to not stop their efforts until the customer is unhappy.
    – oerkelens
    Commented Jul 28, 2016 at 18:48

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

All of them are missing the word 'the', so they're all wrong.

Apart from that, they're all correct.

Just note: 'Till' is a shortening of 'until', so it's only used in informal speech.

Improve this answer
2
  • Fixed the the in the question since it wasn't the target. Thanks.
    – mfc
    Commented Jul 28, 2016 at 12:36
  • Till is perfectly acceptable in American English, and is found in scholarly papers and broadsheet newspapers as well as in speech, and is to be distinguised from 'til.
    – choster
    Commented Jul 28, 2016 at 14:21

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .