Found this on Wikipedia, which claims it is British usage. Do we Brits believe it? Sounds very unlikely to me.

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The use of whilst instead of while is regional in speech, but whilst is nearly always used in official documents, signs and instructions. This is because in some Northern dialects, while means "until". Not knowing this caused a number of fatalities when automatic level (railway) crossings were first introduced with signs saying "do not cross the track while the lights are flashing"; people in the North waited for the flashing lights before crossing the line. Similarly instructions on equipment "do not press start while this cover is removed" have had to be changed for England.

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If true, that could be a fatal misunderstanding of the language! Of course, we in the U.S. never use whilst.

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Originally posted by pauld:
Found this on Wikipedia, which claims it is British usage. Do we Brits believe it? Sounds very unlikely to me.

quote:

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The use of whilst instead of while is regional in speech, but whilst is nearly always used in official documents, signs and instructions. This is because in some Northern dialects, while means "until". Not knowing this caused a number of fatalities when automatic level (railway) crossings were first introduced with signs saying "do not cross the track while the lights are flashing"; people in the North waited for the flashing lights before crossing the line. Similarly instructions on equipment "do not press start while this cover is removed" have had to be changed for England.

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I don't believe for one second the story of ignorant northerners getting killed for misunderstanding the word while.

That said it's true that in some spokendialects in the north of the country "while" is used as a replacement for until.
People will say things like

"you'll have to wait while Monday for it".

(I do like one example given in Collins dictionary though - "You'll never make progress while you listen to me" made me chuckle.)

This is entirely a spoken usage. NO-one ever uses it in writing and no-one ever mistakes it when reading.
There are lots of things like this.
In my dialect I say "me" instead of "my" and just a hop and a skip down the road they still say "bay" instead of "are not".

Do I need to say that I would never write that way ?

No-one - northerner or otherwise - is going to get killed through misreading "Do not cross while lights are flashing".

The meanings of "while" and "whilst" are nearly identicle although "whilst" is now rarely used and sounds rather pompous.

Non curo ! Si metrum no habet, non est poema.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

When I first spoke to a person at our head office which had just been established in Colne (Lancashire) I asked whether I could speak to the accountant.

"No", she said, "He's away while Thursday". I had to ask for a translation since this construction is never used in the south.

However, I agree with Bob. Such spoken idiom is not used in writing and no confusion would even be created.

Richard English