Comments on: The Difference Between “While” and “Whilst”

By: Hm

Hm — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:19:01 +0000

I’m British and I have to say that I hate ‘Whilst’. I don’t know why, but it sounds and looks totally wrong to me, so I never use it. ‘While’ is the way forward!

By: David Clark

David Clark — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:40:49 +0000

Dear Peter Foulds, it seems you want to put yourself in a superior position whilst in fact not grasping the subtle difference. I use both while and whilst depending on the meaning I want to communicate, but imagine you prefer the simplified version of the language pushed on us through American/Microsoft ‘English’?

By: Miguele

Miguele — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 02:47:44 +0000

Hi everyone. Just like Paul said, then “whilst is more like “when”? (due to the time of the action?), ex:

I was chatting with David whilst the accident happened!

I was chatting with David when the accident happened!

But in the case of using “while”, the example would be:

I was chatting with David while the accident happened in the office? store? street?

Therefore, “while” can be used to refer to a place where the action takes or took place.

You can say, ex:

I am going to have dinner while you watch the movie.

But, you can’t say:

I am going to have dinner “when” or “whilst” you watch the movie. (it sounds very imperfect).

Cheers everyone!

By: gav

gav — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 22:08:55 +0000

“He was tied to a lampost whilst his owner finished the shopping.”

This is a great example. Using “while” in this case would not sound correct to a native speaker.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:26:30 +0000

‘While’ and ‘whilst’ are different as they relate to time in different ways. It’s similar to the way we have different tenses depending on whether an action is completed or not.

The perfect tense (I have done something) is a completed action in the past whereas the imperfect tense (I was doing something) is a continuing action in the past. My french teacher taught me that ‘the imperfect tense was happening when the perfect tense happened.’

‘Whilst’ refers to something that happened at a specific time as something else whereas ‘while’ is a more general statement.

E.g.s
He was tied to a lampost whilst his owner finished the shopping.

I tend to tie hime to a lampost while I do the shopping.

The former is a defined period of time (it ends once the shopping was finished) whereas the latter is a general continuing statement (I could still be doing the shopping or I could be doing it at any time – you can’t tell from the sentence).