Change from to-day to today - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange Today Was vs Today Is - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange The 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum et al., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, would consider words like yesterday, today, tonight, and tomorrow as pronouns (specifically, deictic temporal pronouns). Related info is in CGEL pages 429, 564-5. Question: What are the origins and history of using on tomorrow, on today, and on yesterday ** (which in standard Englishes are just tomorrow, today, and yesterday)?

Understanding the Context

Examples: US Journal of the Senate (2006, all bold font added): ORDERS FOR ADJOURNMENT UNTIL 9 A.M. ON TOMORROW ... american english - Origins and history of "on tomorrow", "on today ... Today had been the worst day of my life.

Key Insights

seems awkward, as today is not understood to mean on this day (the original meaning). In narrative, an event that is happened in the past is narrated as it is the present, as in: It is the 1st of April, 2006. Today will be the worst day of my life. Outside that specific context, I would write Which of the following is grammatical? What date/day is it today?

Final Thoughts

What date/day is today? In old books, people often use the spelling "to-day" instead of "today". When did the change happen? Also, when people wrote "to-day", did they feel, when pronouncing the word, that it contained two Today means "the current day", so if you're asking what day of the week it is, it can only be in present tense, since it's still that day for the whole 24 hours. In other contexts, it's okay to say, for example, "Today has been a nice day" nearer the end of the day, when the events that made it a nice day are finished (or at least, nearly so).