Monday
Jun142010
Whilst I'm at it... another bad word
Monday, June 14, 2010 at 8:07AM
I had a little rant here on Friday about the use of the word ‘etc’. I don’t fall into word rage very often but here’s another one that can get me going: using ‘whilst’ instead of ‘while’.
There’s an interesting discussion about this on the Guardian’s website here. I don’t think there’s anything grammatically wrong about making ‘whilst’ and ‘while’ interchangeable, though ‘whilst’ can also be used in circumstances where ‘while’ would be wrong.
No, it’s much simpler. What a very ugly word this is. Whilst. Say it to yourself out loud. Would you speak it in general conversation? Could you imagine ever uttering something like this?
No, I thought not. People would think you were being pompous or just downright weird. You'd use 'while', a perfectly good and simpler term.
Here’s a good rule of thumb: if you'd think twice about speaking a word there's probably a good reason to do the same when writing it.
I love the comment in the Guardian by Dominic Watt of the Department of Linguistics & Phonetics, the University of Leeds who says…
Quite.
There’s an interesting discussion about this on the Guardian’s website here. I don’t think there’s anything grammatically wrong about making ‘whilst’ and ‘while’ interchangeable, though ‘whilst’ can also be used in circumstances where ‘while’ would be wrong.
No, it’s much simpler. What a very ugly word this is. Whilst. Say it to yourself out loud. Would you speak it in general conversation? Could you imagine ever uttering something like this?
Whilst you're at the supermarket could you buy some eggs?
No, I thought not. People would think you were being pompous or just downright weird. You'd use 'while', a perfectly good and simpler term.
Here’s a good rule of thumb: if you'd think twice about speaking a word there's probably a good reason to do the same when writing it.
I love the comment in the Guardian by Dominic Watt of the Department of Linguistics & Phonetics, the University of Leeds who says…
It is… particularly beloved of students who write bad essays.
Quite.
Reader Comments (1)
"Whilst" reads as very precious to me.
Here in the US, I have a problem with "towards" - I tend to use it, but here in the States, "toward" is the preferred form.