A Word, Please: Why ‘stay awhile’ but ‘wait for a while’?

Usually if you’re unsure whether a term is one word or two, the best thing to do is look up the one-word form. Imagine, for instance, that you want to know whether to write “leg room” or “legroom.” You don’t have to look up “leg” and “room” to know they’re in the dictionary or that you can use them together. But only by looking up “legroom” can you know whether it exists.

If it does (and it does), here’s the final piece of the puzzle: Usually, when a one-word form is in the dictionary, you should opt for it over the two-word form. After all, it evolved for that very purpose. Publishers follow this system, too. So if you use “legroom” your writing will be more in line with the pros.

But in one instance, this strategy won’t help. It’ll hurt: “awhile” and “a while.”

If you’re wondering which form to use and you check the dictionary you’ll see “awhile” exists. But unlike “legroom” and similar terms, that doesn’t mean you should use it.

Correct use of “awhile” and “a while” require an expert-level grasp of subtle grammar dynamics which, luckily, you already have, though you may not know it.

You see, “awhile” is an adverb. That might surprise people who learned in school that adverbs are only those “ly” words that modify actions: quickly, sadly, hungrily, etc. In fact, adverbs are a bigger club. And because “awhile” modifies verbs like “stay,” as in “stay awhile,” it qualifies as an adverb. The dictionary considers it an adverb, too. So that’s not just my interpretation.

“A while,” however, is a noun phrase, which simply means a noun like “while” plus accessory words like “a.” Noun phrases work just like nouns, so we can think of “a while” as a noun. It’s a span of time, not unlike “an hour” or “a day.” And all these terms can work as nouns in a sentence, as in “Stay for a while.”

But to understand why “Stay for” requires the two-word “a while,” you need to know not just about adverbs and nouns but about prepositions, too. Prepositions like “for,” as well as “at,” “to,” “with,” “from” and many others, introduce nouns. Not adverbs. Just nouns. So the preposition “for” can’t introduce the adverb “awhile.” It can only introduce the noun “a while.”

So “Stay awhile” and “Stay for a while” are always correct choices. But there’s a twist — one that requires an even more advanced knowledge of grammar. Though “Stay awhile” is correct, “Stay a while” is also acceptable. The reason: a concept called an “adverbial.”

Unlike adverbs, which are a word category, “adverbial” refers to a job being done in a sentence. The job of adverbial is often performed by an adverb, but not always.

Different parts of speech can work adverbially, too, and that includes whole phrases. Compare the sentences “They’ll visit frequently” to “They’ll visit in the morning” and “They’ll visit this week.” The first uses an adverb, the second uses a prepositional phrase and the third uses a noun phrase. But they’re all doing the same job. They’re all functioning adverbially, which means they’re all adverbials. In other words, a noun phrase can sometimes do the job of an adverb.

So because “a while” is a noun phrase, it can modify “stay” to get you “Stay a while,” but the reverse is not true. You can’t use “Stay for awhile,” because “for” requires a noun.

As a little mnemonic, I use the word “foray.” It reminds me that after the word “for” I need the word “a.” “For a while.” Hopefully, it can help you, too.

— June Casagrande is the author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.