t/m

Dutch acronym for the phrase "tot en met", which means "up to and including".

"Up to and including" is a concept that the English language doesn't seem to have embraced quite as fully as Dutch has. For example, when a tourist attraction says it is open from "April to October", does it mean from April up to and including October, or does the period only stretch to the end of September?

The phrase "up to and including", while allowing for greater accuracy in expression, sounds clunky, and is thus rarely heard. Hence, the very concept is only used in specific circumstances (e.g. set theory). In Dutch, "tot en met" is a sharp snap of a phrase, and is used regularly and to good effect.

Yet another example of how other languages can also imply a completely different way of thinking about the world.

In the Talmud as well as most other Halachic literature, this concept is discussed in detail. The phrase od v'od b'chlal meaning "up to(inclusive)" is literally "until and totally until". The phrase od v'lo od b'chlal which means "up to(exclusive)" literally says "until and not totally until."

These phrases come up in reference to a whole manner of measurements, especially limits on time. This is related to why some people who keep kosher wait six hours between eating milk and meat while others wait five hours and a few minutes. You are meant to wait until the sixth hour, but is it until the start of the sixth hour(exclusive), or until the end of the sixth hour(inclusive)?

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_{Corrections welcome. The literal translations are my own.
There are other customs including waiting three hours and waiting one hour, but these are slightly outside the scope of this wu as they are related to the concept of digestion and not to problems of unspecific quantities.}