General rules:
Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the mods.
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
Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. They don't decide if something is "acceptable", just if it is widely used enough to report. If a mistake becomes common, it will enter the dictionary.
Don't get me started on "donut" instead of "doughnut".
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...
Americans don't like "ou" in their words.
So it is thereby, by law, and without question, "Drive throgh".
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.
Car washes too!
For a moment, I thought, this was a misprint and they had to officially get out a spray can to complete the word...
there are two "l"'s in cancelled, i will die on this hill.../s
Kinda sad where you live in a state where every little misspelling or mangled punctuation causes such stress.
How about drive throo?
Sounds Canadian.
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.
