On 18/02/13 21:31, Marc Espie wrote:
On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 09:25:06PM +0000, Kevin Chadwick wrote:
i asked native english speaker,
apparently, taking awhile is always 'sarcastic', and never short.
Not according to dictionaries[1][2][4]. I've never thought "awhile" as
a sarcastic usage.
Well I've never seen awhile written without a space so you can take
this with a pinch of salt but I've heard
"I'm gonna be a while so I'll have to give it a miss" and I've never
heard it rather than something like "I won't be long" even if in
reality that always means they will be ages ;-).
This seems like a disturbing trend to me.
are we going to turn www into a dumbed-down international english slang ? ...
Surely the true arbiter on whether "awhile" is an acceptable term and
its meaning would be Professor Elvin Atombender of Impossible Mission
(Epyx) notoriety.
His invitation to "Stay awhile..." correlates with the implication of
the original text and seems to communicate succinctly the scenario...
