The expression by night is typically used to contrast someone's nighttime activities to their daytime activities, especially when the nighttime activities are unusual or unexpected. You will see it very frequently in the construction X by day, Y by night. Some examples: ...treated it like a greasy spoon by day and a hotel by night I mean, if it's -- if it's somebody that is -- is living as a ...
- The origin of "at night" to indicate a point of time and the usage of prepositions "in" and"at" In olden times, when the time expression "at night" was originated, night might have been thought as a point of time in the day because there wasn't any activity going on and people were sleeping that time unlike daytime.
Adding Time brings the two into a comparison of time periods. Saying just Day and Night compares the non-time/instantaneous status; light and dark, up and down, inside and outside. This is the purpose of the usage, not a time period.
Can we use "day and night time" instead of "day and night"?
3 "Night on the tiles" is a phrase which draws imagery of the wild nocturnal activities of cats as they have fun over the rooftops. As metaphorical expression are used and adapted over time they adopt new meaning and connotation, so what was a "Night on the tiles" has evolved to become a "Night on the Town".
I forgot where but I saw the word "night-time" written like "nighttime". Now is that correct or accepted? Can it be written as a single word? I am specifically concerned about British usage. I did