Dear Geist,

What is the difference, if any, between “a while” and “awhile”? They are both about a very short period of time, right? I’m in the drafting phase of an essay so I probably shouldn’t get stuck on this kind of thing. But it’s bugging me.

—Distracted, Thunder Bay ON

Dear Distracted,

is for a short time. To make it even murkier, sometimes either one works, as in “She decided to wait awhile (a while).” By the way, in our view it’s OK to spend time pinpointing the meaning of a word once in a while, even during drafting. The more precise the words, the stronger your writing. In our view, browsing dictionaries and usage guides is one of the more benign displacement activities.