‘Why is whilst only ever used in letters?’ asked my husband, casting aside an argumentative letter from his sister written in curly script and blue ballpoint. Why indeed?
It cannot be wrong to use whilst, any more than amongst or amidst. But it goes with a certain register of genteel speech that can merge into officialese or hypercorrectness.
Whilst, amongst and amidst started off by displaying what is called the adverbial genitive. English still shows the genitive through the suffix s (‘Dot’s charm’), and the apostrophe used with it is a mere spelling convention. In any case, s was added to words such as all way to indicate their function as adverbs: always. Similarly the adjective toward (meaning the opposite of untoward) became an adverb as towards.
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