English spelling "today vs. to-day" (2025)

I have a special friend in Ireland who always spells words like "today, tonight, tomorrow" etc. with a hyphen:

to-day, to-night, to-morrow.

Is this a special Irish habit or just an older way of spelling?
I found it in an older English grammar book from the 60s as well, but no explanation why it is spelled with a hyphen...

In case it is an older way of spelling, is it only true for words starting with to-, or are there more?!

Thanks for your help.

-MrMagoo

I have seen this in older texts, and they were not Irish.
Only when seeing it hyphened did I realize what the etymology of "tomorrow" was.

The ever-interesting page Online Etymology Dictionary says that tomorrow was

written as two words until 16c., then as to-morrow until early 20c.

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The same for today, but tonight was written as to words until the 18th century.

Jana

Jana337 said:

The same for today, but tonight was written as to words until the 18th century.

Jana

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Two words?

cuchuflete said:

Two words?

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Banana fingers.

Jana

The following origins of tomorrow and today show that the words evolve into single words from two words. The two word or hyphenated versions are old and until today I have never seen that spelling.

Origin of tomorrow: [Middle English to morow, from Old English to morgenne, in the morning : to, at, on; see to + morgenne, dative of morgen, morning.]

Origin of today: Middle English to dai, from Old English to dæge : to, to; see to + dæge, dative of dæg, day; see agh- in Indo-European roots.]

Info from Thefreedictionary.com

cuchuflete said:

Two words?

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Jana-
It's not to words, it's to-wards. Like to-day, and to-morrow!

Jana337 said:

Banana fingers.

Jana

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You or me?

I've always [all ways?] thought it was my head that was thick, and not my fingers, but that's a discussion with a peel for to morrow.

cuchuflete said:

You or me?

I've always [all ways?] thought it was my head that was thick, and not my fingers, but that's a discussion with a peel for to morrow.

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Mee off curse.

Jana

MrMagoo said:

I have a special friend in Ireland who always spells words like "today, tonight, tomorrow" etc. with a hyphen

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Although there are many features of Irish life that are charmingly anachronistic, I would like to make the point that most of us would no more write to-day and to-morrow than we'd write to-ffee, to-mato or To-ronto.

We do, however, have an EXCEPTIONALLY well-developed sense of humour that is capable of extracting the Michael over a very long period of time.
Maybe you should check that your special friend isn't just being a touch self-indulgent

panjandrum said:

Maybe you should check that your special friend isn't just being a touch self-indulgent

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Now, we could start a whole new thread to find the true interpretation of special here.

cuchuflete said:

You or me?

I've always [all ways?]

Cuchu...put your hands up and step away from the off polemic - people have almost come to blows over this issue in other threads!

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jacinta said:

Now, we could start a whole new thread to find the true interpretation of special here.

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My gran has, in all seriousness, called my boyfriend my "special friend" before! Bless!

All I did was quote MrMagoo's post in an entirely neutral manner.
There was nothing bold in my post, nor in MrMagoo's. Having used the word to desribe his friend, he also referred to "... a special Irish habit...".
Maybe I shouldn't have used the word myself

MrMagoo might comment on the possibility that his Irish friend could be using an archaic form deliberately?

panjandrum said:

All I did was quote MrMagoo's post in an entirely neutral manner.
There was nothing bold in my post, nor in MrMagoo's. Having used the word to desribe his friend, he also referred to "... a special Irish habit...".
Maybe I shouldn't have used the word myself

MrMagoo might comment on the possibility that his Irish friend could be using an archaic form deliberately?

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Oh no, she doesn't use it deliberately, she uses it all the time... that's why I wondered about it.
With "a special Irish habit" I just meant the way of spelling, I assumed it could have been an Irish way of spelling today.

Interesting....

Thank you anyways
-MrMagoo

panjandrum said:

Although there are many features of Irish life that are charmingly anachronistic, I would like to make the point that most of us would no more write to-day and to-morrow than we'd write to-ffee, to-mato or To-ronto.

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*hehe* I know you don't.
I was asking only because I noticed the strange spelling of "to-morrow" in my friend's letters and e-mails.

We do, however, have an EXCEPTIONALLY well-developed sense of humour that is capable of extracting the Michael over a very long period of time.
Maybe you should check that your special friend isn't just being a touch self-indulgent

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Nah, she isn't - well, she does have a self-indulgent way of humour sometimes, but not when it comes to spelling

panjandrum said:

I would like to make the point that most of us would no more write to-day and to-morrow than we'd write to-ffee, to-mato or To-ronto.

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But you still write "I have nothing to-louse *jk*

I'm currently working on an extract from Henry Clay's Raleigh Letter, and here is one part of it that brought me here:

"For if to-day Texas be aquired to strengthen one part of the Confederacy, to-morrow Canada may be required to add strenght to another. For if today Texas be aquired to strengthen one part of the Confederacy, tomorrow Canada may be required to add strenght to another."

Clay was referring to the North and South of the United States a little before the Civil War.
The only thing that I found to separate the first sentance from the other is that Clay could have been trying to work on a contrast between what's modern and what is old, but that looks a bit awkward.
It could be a little too ironical for what the tone of the text is (moralistic). There is otherwise the difference in hyphens, which form union, and which I could do something out of as well.

I will most probably go with either or both these interpretations for my homework, but I sort of got curious about what type of new explanation on the difference between the two could come up from there.
I don't even know if "today" and "tomorrow" already existed in 1844.

A scan of the original book can be found at Letters of Messrs. Clay, Benton, and Barrow, on the subject of the annexation of Texas to the United States : Clay, Henry, 1777-1852 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive and the sentence that you quote is on page 4. However, your quote seems to indicate that, in the copy that you are working from, the same sentence is repeated with the only difference being the hyphenated "to-day" (They both have the misspelling of "strenght" that the original does not have)

If you follow the link, you will see that the original has both "to-day" and "to-morrow" and the sentence appears only once.

The only conclusion must be that you have a negligently edited copy.

Here are some versions, from OED, of "today" with their dates - you will see that its spelling varies over time: presently we spell it as one word:

eOE King Ælfred tr. Gregory Pastoral Care (Hatton) (1871) lviii. 441 Ic hæbbe ðe nu todæg [L. hodie] gesetne ofer rice & ofer ðioda.
c1275 (▸?a1200) Laȝamon Brut (Calig.) (1963) l. 4001 Cesar wolde nu to-dæi Brut-lond biwinnen.
▸c1384 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(2)) (1850) Luke xiii. 32 Loo! I caste out fendis..to day and to morwe.
1765 J. Wedgwood Let. 6 July in Sel. Lett. (1965) 35 Mr Grants desert service will be sent today.
1820 Keats Isabella in Lamia & Other Poems 63 To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow.
2006 Independent 30 Dec. 34/1 There are many last-minute Christmas shoppers in today, especially men.

PaulQ said:

The only conclusion must be that you have a negligently edited copy.

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It looks like the 'editor' of this decided to update the original (and now archaic) spellings to-day and to-morrow, and produced the modern sentence ~ but forgot to delete the old one