Wily Time

In Search of a Wisewoman

Retirement has given me time to while - wile away, inclusive of curiosity about a language I have used with some facility yet don’t always know the origin of the idioms that colour my phraseology. I was reading a novel that said a character was whiling away time, and I popped down yet another rabbit hole. The phrase dates back to the 1600’s and according to the internet is the only surviving instance of ‘while’ used as a verb meaning to spend time. To while away time is to fill it up. To ‘wile’ away time is an alternative sometimes used in the sense of tricking or luring time away which dates back to the 1700’s. Apparently, both are used interchangeably to depict wasting or passing time in a pleasant way. How poetic to while away one’s time in a garden or a mountain top or on a beach but alas, it seems that the internet wiles away time one often later regrets.

Wasting time is different from whiling away time as it often means negativity and neglect that impacts oneself and or others; a misuse of time that one may be called upon to pay the piper. To while away time, implies pleasant relaxation and the best gift is actually doing nothing but just being, of shutting off and shutting down and catching up with oneself and perhaps others who are dear and pleasant company, willing to kick back and breathe with you. Chaucer noted in 1395 that Time and tide wait for no man.” Maybe it’s all about timing, and who or what steals it, and the power to choose it’s spending. Meanwhile, the last word goes to beloved author A.A, Milne who said, “ Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”