While vs Which - What's the difference?
while | which |
An uncertain duration of time, a period of time.
During the same time that.
* , chapter=12
, title= * 1948 , , North from Mexico / The Spanish-Speaking People of The United States , J. B. Lippincott Company, page 25,
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= Although.
* 2013 September 28, (Kenan Malik), "
(Northern England, Scotland) Until.
* Beaumont and Fletcher
As long as.
* I. Watts
To pass (time) idly.
* Longfellow
To loiter.
What, of those mentioned or implied (used interrogatively ).
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-17, volume=408, issue=8849, magazine=(The Economist), author=Schumpeter
, title= (interrogative) What one or ones (of those mentioned or implied).
(relative) The one or ones that.
(relative) The one or ones mentioned.
* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author=
, title= Used of people (now generally (who), (whom) or (that)).
* 1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , Acts IX:
(lb) Who; whom; what (of those mentioned or implied).
:
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=2
, passage=Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke.
*
*:There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= An occurrence of the word which .
* 1959 , William Van O'Connor, Modern prose, form and style (page 251)
* 1989 , Donald Ervin Knuth, Tracy Larrabee, Paul M. Roberts, Mathematical writing (page 90)
As nouns the difference between while and which
is that while is an uncertain duration of time, a period of time while which is an occurrence of the word which .As a conjunction while
is during the same time that.As a verb while
is to pass (time) idly.As a determiner which is
what, of those mentioned or implied (used interrogatively ).As a pronoun which is
(lb) who; whom; what (of those mentioned or implied).while
English
Noun
(en noun)- He lectured for quite a long while .
Conjunction
(wikipedia while) (English Conjunctions)Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=While the powwow was going on the big woman came back again. She was consider'ble rumpled and scratched up, but there was fire in her eye.}}
- While De Anza was exploring the Bay of San Francisco, seeking a site for the presidio, the American colonists on the eastern seaboard, three thousand miles away, were celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Fantasy of navigation, passage=Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.}}
London Is Special, but Not That Special," New York Times (retrieved 28 September 2013):
- While Britain’s recession has been deep and unforgiving, in London it has been relatively shallow.
- I may be conveyed into your chamber; I'll lie under your bed while midnight.
- Use your memory; you will sensibly experience a gradual improvement, while you take care not to overload it.
Verb
(whil)- The lovely lady whiled the hours away.
- (Spectator)
Derived terms
* while away * meanwhile * the whilewhich
English
(wikipedia which)Alternative forms
* whiche (obsolete) * wich (Jamaican English)Determiner
(en determiner)In praise of laziness, passage=Which of these banes of modern business life is worse remains open to debate. But what is clear is that office workers are on a treadmill of pointless activity. Managers allow meetings to drag on for hours. Workers generate e-mails because it requires little effort and no thought. An entire management industry exists to spin the treadmill ever faster.}}
Katrina G. Claw
Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm, volume=101, issue=3, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Many genes with reproductive roles also have antibacterial and immune functions, which indicate that the threat of microbial attack on the sperm or egg may be a major influence on rapid evolution during reproduction.}}
- The men which acompanyed him on his waye stode amased, for they herde a voyce, butt sawe no man.
Pronoun
(English Pronouns)Welcome to the plastisphere, passage=Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.}}
Usage notes
* (US usage'') Some authorities insist, prescriptively, that relative ''which'' should be used only in non-restrictive contexts. For restrictive contexts (e.g., ''The song that made the charts in 2004 is better than the later ones''), they prefer ''that''. Actual usage does not support this "rule". Fowler, who proposed the rule, himself acknowledged that it was "not the practice of most or of the best writers". Even E.B. White, a notorious "which-hunter", wrote this: "the premature expiration of a pig is, I soon discovered, a departure which the community marks solemnly on its calendar." In modern UK usage, ''The song which made the charts in 2004 is better than the later ones is generally accepted without question. * When "which" (or the other relative pronouns "who" and "that") is used as the subject of a relative clause, the verb agrees with the antecedent of the pronoun. Thus "The thing which is...", "The things which are...", etc.Quotations
* 1611 — 1:1 *: Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us...Derived terms
* every which way * every which where * whichever * whichness * whichsoeverNoun
(es)- The ofs and the whiches have thrown our prose into a hundred-years' sleep.
- Is it not true, TLL asked of Mary-Claire, that people invariably get their whiches and thats right when they speak?