I was curious as to the correct uses of the words "whilst" and "while". In what context should I use them?
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1@TrevorD, I'm a native speaker and I don't know the answer. – Brian Hooper Aug 06 '13 at 12:10
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@TrevorD: This is pretty ELU. Do you really think it is so elementary? – Mitch Aug 06 '13 at 12:12
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1Use while in the present day. Use whilst in the 17th century. – Robusto Aug 06 '13 at 12:51
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@Mitch et al. OK. Deleted comments. – TrevorD Aug 06 '13 at 13:01
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possible duplicate of What is the correct usage of "while" and "whilst"?. Also related: When did “while” and “whilst” become interchangeable? – FumbleFingers Aug 06 '13 at 13:51
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ODO shows
whilst conjunction & adverb
while
OED shows
whilst adv. and conj. (and prep.)
2. a. conj. = while
3. transf. = while
4. conj. Till, until: =while
It appears not to matter which you choose — although as everything points back to while, that would be the word most people would use.
A Google Ngram shows that while has consistently been more popular than whilst since 1700, and the latter has declined recently. [Note that while excludes the noun. The erratic nature of the 17th century is because of the paucity of published data, but the results appear to be far closer then than now.]
Andrew Leach
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Unless you are in the US, in which case use while. Whilst would be considered archaic or simply strange. – bib Aug 06 '13 at 12:03
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Whilst is relatively common in British English, in my experience, but be aware in that in the North of England (particularly North Yorkshire), "while" can be used to mean "until".
For example, "I waited while 4 o'clock for a bus"; "I'm on holiday while Thursday". See here for further discussion
Phil M Jones
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