In a recent grammar discussion thread on Messenger, a Facebook friend—I’ll identify her only as Hanna H.—commented in exasperation that she just couldn’t get a good grasp of the sense of the word “while” whenever she hears it being used. In a fleeting moment she could get a hazy feel of what it means but it soon bursts like a tiny bubble, often leaving her in a state of confusion about what has just been said.
I assured Hanna that she’s hardly alone in her bafflement about “while.” A lot of people get confused when dealing with certain English words that, depending on how they are positioned or articulated in a sentence, could be any of four different parts of speech (the modern, less confusing term for “parts of speech” is “word class” or “syntactic category’), each with different shades of meaning to further complicate the matter. Such a word is the idiosyncratic “while.”
To put our discussion in better context, English has a total of nine parts of speech that are now commonly divided into
open class—nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs—and
closed class (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections). The word “while” happens to function as four parts of speech straddling both classes, primarily as a conjunction (closed class) and also often as a noun, a verb, and an adverb (open class).
IMAGE CREDIT: MYHAPPYENGLISH.COM*PLUS 3 MORE AND A FEW OTHER SENSES BESIDES IN MERRIAM-WEBSTER’S RECKONING
“While” as conjunction. As the linguistic form that typically joins together sentences, clauses, phrases, or words, “while” has as many as six senses. It means “during the time that” in such sentence constructions as “You may rest here
while I do the groceries,” and it means “as long as” in “
While there’s enough sunlight we can play soccer.”
It means “when on the other hand” in the sense of “whereas” in “So hard for me to make ends meet,
while you just gallivant around all day,” and it means “in spite of” or “despite” in the sense of “although” in “
While recognized as a competent economist, he lived a life of grinding poverty.” And it means “similarly and at the same time that” in such constructions as “
While the lovely actress mainly appeals to the masses for her looks, she is also hailed by critics for her fine acting.”
“While” as noun. As the linguistic form that typically serves as subject, object, or complement in a sentence, the word “while” means “a period of time especially when short and marked by the occurrence of an action or a condition,” as in “Looking for a better place to call their home, the newlyweds are staying in an apartment for
a while.” And it means “the time and effort used (as in the performance of an action)” in the idiomatic sense of “trouble” in “For the favors you’ve given us, we’ll make your summer stay in the ancestral house really worth your
while.”
“While” as verb. As the linguistic form that typically expresses an act, occurrence, or mode of being, “while” (in tandem with the adverb “away”) means “to cause to pass especially without boredom or in a pleasant manner,” as in “In summer, we will
while away the hours as we wait for dinnertime.”
“While” as adverb. As the linguistic form that typically serves as a modifier of a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a preposition, a phrase, a clause, or a sentence, it means ‘during which,” as in “In the period
while a woman is gestating, she requires more nutrition.”
As we can see from this great wealth of senses, it isn’t surprising that Hanna would get so exasperated trying to get a good grasp of “while.” I trust that this discussion will banish most of that puzzlement and enable her and similarly situated people to use “while” with total confidence.
(Next:
The correct tense for reporting verbs in reported speech) October 10, 2019
This essay, 1,163rd of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the October 3 , 2019 print edition of The Manila Times
, © 2019 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.-------------------
*For an even better feel of the idiosyncratic word “while,” check out MyHappyEnglish.com’s lively podcast giving examples of “6 Ways To Use ‘While’” by clicking this link! 
