Expression: Up until now

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hi

I am getting entangled again :slight_smile:

Up until now – the expression that I hear and read quite often.
But it’s not a ‘dictionary’ phrase like ‘so far’, ‘by now’, ‘as yet’, ‘till now’, etc.,
or just ‘up to now’

  1. What additional meaning up adds to until now? Could you give some comments about it?

  2. Moreover, I can see that there is some ‘grammatical tradition’ :slight_smile: to use different (synonymous) expressions depending on positivity of the statement itself.

Amyway, I meet ‘up until now’ mainly in positive statements. Like:

His campaign went so well up until now.
Even up until now, comparatively few books have been written about him.

Could you say which synonymous phrases from the above dictionary list can be used in these two sentences with no change in their meanings?

2

Morning Tamara,

I hope you’ll forgive me being flippant but your typo has created an interesting new expression: amyway (anyway) suggesting the way in which Amy explains something. I like it!

But to your point. The expressions: till/until now and up till/up until now both suggest the idea of from the start/beginning to the present time. The addition of ‘up’ simply indicates that whatever follows has obtained/existed right to the present moment. If you imagine a line marking the junction to a main road, you drive up to that white line and stop. If you imagine a deadline by which an application must be sent and you leave sending that application to the last moment, you are waiting up till the last posting time before you put the letter in the postbox.

Both constructions can be positive or negative:

[i]Up until now you have been able to buy this online.

Up until now you have been unable to buy this online[/i].

As for an alternative, I could suggest: To date -

Alan

3

Morning Alan,

Thanks a lot.
Aha, that’s not a fixed phrase and up is just ‘up’. Good to hear.

Ala… er… um… Anyway, I have a problem to use up in a situation like you gave (‘up to that white line’) – when the road with thaaat white line goes down (when we, in fact, have two ‘dimensions’, direction of movement and the real slope of the road).
:frowning:

4

Dear Alan

I have never seen the usage of up till. Could you please tell me if the following sentences sound OK to you?

1- Up till now he had been in charge here.
2- The water came up till his neck.

If the sentences given above sound odd, could you please use up till in your own sentences?

Tom

5

Hi Tom,

No, the following doesn’t work, I’m afraid:

The water came up till his neck.

We have to use till and until with time expressions.

Alan

6

Thank you, Alan.

Last question.

Are both of the following sentences same?

1- Up till now he had been in charge here.
2- Until now he had been in charge here.

Tom

7

.
Yes, they’re the same, Tom.

You could also say:
3- Till now he had been in charge here.

Amy

8

Hi Tom

Your use of past perfect in the last two sentences is interesting (and correct).

I’m running out of time right now, but I’ll write more later.

Amy

9

I would end my questions here with a request for a few examples of up till from you!

Do yu find the following OK?

1- Up till 2004, we lived happily.
2- She was not married up till this Monday.
3- She irritated him up till he was furious. (To me, until sounds better here)
4- They lived together up till his death.
5- Up till then, I had never tasted a burger.

Tom

10

Hi Tom

Here are a few comments about your sentences (in [color=blue]blue):

1- Up till 2004, we lived happily. [color=blue]OK

2- She was not married up till this Monday. [color=blue]Why did you use this and not last?

3- She irritated him up till he was furious. (To me, until sounds better here)
[color=blue]Until (or just ‘till’) sounds better to me, too.

4- They lived together up till his death. [color=blue]OK

5- Up till then, I had never tasted a burger. [color=blue]OK

Here are a few more sentences. I avoided using “up till now” even though that is probably the most common collocation.

[i]- She studied up till dawn, then fell asleep and slept through the test.

  • My normal weight was 110 pounds up till 5 years ago, but since then I’ve had trouble keeping my weight under 125.
  • This PC is much better than the one I’d been using up till last June.[/i]

Amy

11

Hi, Tom,

I was wondering why you had decided to use past perfect in your second post on this topic (Up till now he had been in charge here.)

Would you please comment on that becuase it seems unobvious to me.

Moreover, I have a comment on the 3rd sentence in your last post in this topic (She irritated him up till he was furious.) Why not use “got furious” instead of “was furious”? It is not a permanent state of the person mentioned which became known and which started being manifested soon after her irritating him.

Yurii