On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 20:53, Alexander Hall wrote: > On 02/18/13 19:48, Nick Holland wrote:
>> "a while"/"awhile" means a short time? wow. I've always used it as >> meaning "a long time". 'course, I usually say it with a sarcastic tone, >> so maybe it's the sarcasm that gets the point across. > Not that I'm a native English speaker, but I've never ever interpreted > "a while" as a _short_ time specifically, but mostly as a fair but > reasonable amount of time relative to the context. A while is only short if it's a little while. The default is a big while. :)
