On the one hand, a sign like this definitely did have enough room for the full spelling of "through". There seems to be no reason to abbreviate it.
On the other hand, isn't drive-thru just, like, its own noun now? Part of me thinks this was always spelled correctly.
It seems like shorthand for signs that has been used enough that it's basically normal now, like "lite" instead light, or "donut" instead of doughnut.
Right, the distinction I'm making is this isn't just "normalized" but actually the correct spelling. As in, if a newspaper editor saw it written as "drive-through" they would be obliged to correct it.
Suppose both aight?
A drive-through or drive-thru (a sensational spelling of the word through), is a type of take-out service provided by a business that allows customers to purchase products without leaving their cars.
Sensational spelling is the deliberate spelling of a word in a non-standard way for special effect.
Ohh I thought donut was the American spelling of doughnut.
It is.
According to Merriam Webster, “thru” is an acceptable, albeit less common, variant of “through”. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thru
Don't get me started on "donut" instead of "doughnut".
Deez nuts are my favorite
I wonder what the Venn diagram of prescriptivists and graffiti artists is
Yes.
Wy do yu insist so strongly on writing thre mor letters that do nothing to chang the pronunciaton of the word? Ar yu French?
If ther's on thing I hat, it's words ending with silent e's. And whil we'r at it, we ned to get rid of doubl e's as well.
I don't mind silent e's, they do actually change the way words are pronounced at least.
They work like an e after a vowel, making it a long vowel, but with a letter in between. They have absolutely no reason to exist as haet is pronounced the same as hate but has the letters in a more logical order.
Magic Es they taught them to me as. Come to think of it as an adult a magic e could mean something entirely different...
If you want to be more accurate it is a Drive Next to, unless you drive through the building to get your food.
Oil change places where you don't get out of your car are drive through, everywhere else is a drive next to.
The etymology follows the drive-in which is basically a big parking lot you drive in to, do your ordering/eating/movie watching in your car, and then you drive out. And when you don't stop in the middle of a drive in, but instead you continue through it, in your car, it became a drive through.
The pedantic term is a drive-up, btw.
Americans don't like "ou" in their words.
So it is thereby, by law, and without question, "Drive throgh".
For a moment, I thought, this was a misprint and they had to officially get out a spray can to complete the word...
Loved the show Dress to Kill by Eddie Izzard. He thought thru was much better than through coming to the conclusion that through should be pronounced like thruff.
You say erbs, and we say herbs. Because there's a fucking h in it.
I don't think the British need to pick the "who's worse about skipping letters" fight. Lol
Kinda sad where you live in a state where every little misspelling or mangled punctuation causes such stress.
How about drive throo?
Sounds Canadian.
Just a quick reminder that dictionaries are descriptive, they document existing language use rather than set down rules.
If enough people break an existing rule often enough, it makes it into dictionaries. Just ask anyone who doesn't think that "ironic" should mean "coincidental".
Drive-thru
Hi-way
Tonite
Rite
These spellings are extremely pervasive at my workplace and they drive me nuts. Granted, many people there are non-native English speakers. But that just means the people teaching them English are doing it wrong.
Do you spell "to-day" with a hyphen too? Because that's how it used to be, therefore it is correct
General rules:
Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the mods.
