Until five hundred years ago

Question

1) These are practices that existed until five hundred years ago.

2) These are practices that existed up to five hundred years ago.

In each case, could some of those practices have ceased to exist before five hundred years ago?

In each case, could some of those practices have continued to exist after five hundred years ago?

Gratefully,

Navi

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

navitasan
1) These are practices that existed until five hundred years ago.
2) These are practices that existed up to five hundred years ago.

Here's how I read them:

1) These practices started more than five hundred years ago, and continued until five hundred years ago, and then stopped.

2) These current practices have existed for some time. They may have started as long ago as five hundred years, though it may have been earlier.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

navitasanThese are practices that existed up to five hundred years ago.

That one can mean the same as this one,

navitasanThese are practices that existed until five hundred years ago.

but only if you use "until" in place of "to": "These are practices that existed up until five hundred years ago." You can call "up" in that sentence an expletive. It is common in some dialects, but I have to call it non-standard. It accentuates the time span.

"Up to" means something else. "Up to 500" means "as few as 1, surely a lot more than one, more than 400, probably, and as many as 500 but no more". It is poor style to use it in the negative, which is what sentence 2 looks like. You wouldn't mean "up to" as much as "down to", but "down to" does not work as an expression there. That is not what is meant, and the reader sees a mistake for sentence 1, but if you did want that sense, the sentence would be better as "These are practices that existed perhaps as long ago as five hundred years."

Until five hundred years ago

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