Comments on: A While vs Awhile

By: James

James — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:34:15 +0000

I thought “Awhile” , “A while” meant a long period of time.

example “I haven’t seen you for a while now.”

and I’ve been using it that way for a while now… lol ohh i did it again.

By: James

James — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:57:56 +0000

Mo.

“Awhile” vs “A while” is not a rule.

It’s two different things; one is an adverb, the other a noun.

By: lucia

lucia — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:16:44 +0000

a few and few… is the same idea of little and a little…

a few is a positive idea few is a negative idea….

example….

She has a few chocolates in the fridge . She can still have her snacks….( some but not many).

She has few chocolates in the fridge. She have to go to the market to buy some…..

By: Mo

Mo — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 14:54:15 +0000

Can you help me settle a debate? Is a while vs. awhile a rule that came about because of frequent misspellings and general ignorance (as is the case with “you’re welcome” and “you’re welcomed”), or have they always been two words? Thanks.

By: Wei

Wei — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:07:37 +0000

@Jim – I don’t think there’s such a word as aways with an “s” behind. You can say “We walk for some way down the road.”

@Judy – Gail gave good examples for this, but I’ll just add on to it. There is often confusion between the verbs lie and lay. “Lie” does not take an object, while “Lay takes an object.

To put it in a very layman fashion for easy understanding, it means that for “Lie”, the subject will commit the act of lying down itself e.g. “He lies down after a hard day at work”; “Lay” on the other hand, means that the subject will cause something else other than itself to be laid e.g. “He lays the knife on the table”, the knife being the object.

The confusion arises, I believe, due to the fact that “Lay” is also the past tense for “Lie” e.g. “He lay down after a hard day at work”.

Anyway, this is a common grammatical confusion and there is no shortage of clarification for it online. You can just google “Lie vs Lay”.