Whilst

[Jonathan Lighter]

I sometimes say "whilst" and possibly always have. But I know better than to
write it.
I think it was proscribed somewhere.

JL

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 4:11 PM, David A. Daniel <dad at pokerwiz.com> wrote:

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> Poster:       "David A. Daniel" <dad at POKERWIZ.COM>
> Subject:      Whilst
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>
> A while ago, TZ and somebody - don't remember who - had a tiff about
> whether
> Americans say whilst. TZ was saying they do not. I agreed (quietly - I
> didn't write anything) at the time, thinking it mostly a Britism. Well,
> immediately thereafter I started hearing whilst all over the place on
> American TV shows. I thought: hmph. But then I thought: a lot of writers
> for
> US TV are Brits and Canadians as are many actors in the US. So maybe there
> was dialect leak going on, with American actors saying
> Brit/Canadian-written
> lines, or Brit/Canadian actors saying whilst and not knowing they're not
> supposed to. I was satisfied with that hypothesis until the other day I was
> watching CNN and the interviewee, the District Attorney of some Podunk
> county in Ohio, said whilst. So now I'm in a funk and don't know what to
> think. Maybe he is another sleeper spy who missed the ESL class on
> while/whilst and thus gave himself away, like when Tony Franciosa said
> loo-tenant instead of leff-tenant and gave himself away as not being a
> Brit.
> DAD
>
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