Whilst

[Tom Zurinskas]

I looked up "whilst" in the "MacMillan Dictionary for Children" that I just bought (I'm collecting dictionaries).  It does not contain the word "whilst".  Only "while" and that in verb form as well. (Does whilst have a verb form too?)

Interestingly every word that starts with "wh" is given a first pronunciation of ~hw and a second of ~w (except those pronounced as ~h, as in who).  I never hear ~hw in USA.  I don't say ~hw so that may have something to do with it.

Imagine "whoa" as "hwoa"

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
see truespel.com phonetic spelling



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> Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:11:25 -0300
> From: dad at POKERWIZ.COM
> Subject: Whilst
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "David A. Daniel"
> Subject: Whilst
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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