Tuesday, 10 February 2015

Toilet humour

The disabled persons' toilet in our local music school has a disco in it.  No kidding: when you go in, different coloured strobes start to flash, a glittering ball spins and disco music plays.  As I reflected on the implications of this for wheelchair-bound people, it struck me that for me, anyway, dancing at the same time as using the toilet for its usual purpose would be a bad idea.


The trouble is, I was then asked when one uses "whilst" as opposed to "while".  Tricky one, that.
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6 comments:

  1. Tim Trent10 February 2015 at 14:02

    One uses 'whilst' to show one can!

    I looked them up, since I am an inveterate user of whilst. While and whilst mean the same when we use them as conjunctions. They both mean ‘during the time that something else happens’, or ‘in contrast with something else’. While is much more common than whilst, and whilst sounds more formal:

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  2. Tim Trent10 February 2015 at 14:04

    I wonder if the mirrorball is still in the gentlemen's toilet in The Regency Tavern in Brighton. It is over five years since I visited it last.

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  3. Mark In Mayenne10 February 2015 at 14:13

    I used it to match the formality of the request :)

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  4. ShinyNewThing11 February 2015 at 04:11

    In the Comms world, 'whilst' and other 'st' type words are considered archaic and poor style, so I've been trained to always change it to 'while' in anything I am editing/writing.

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  5. James Higham11 February 2015 at 04:18

    Sumwon can clerlee speek Inglish in that loo.

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  6. Mark In Mayenne12 February 2015 at 09:08

    It's certainly archaic, but I like the formal style :)

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