drg@rlvd.UUCP (Duncan Gibson) (05/03/85)
In <395@tymix.UUCP> Herb Kanner comments on the use of "while" in Yorkshire to mean "until". The example given "Do not cross while the lights are flashing" is unusual because it is an imperative, and the dialect "while" is more commonly used in the ordinary future tense. I don't recall hearing while used in this way, but I'm not saying that it isn't just unusual. (As an aside, the semantics are actually wrong as you shouldn't use the level crossing until the lights have STOPPED flashing, if they are flashing already!) The sentence "I'm not going out while nine o'clock" shows the more common form of use.