Generate the answer for a given question. The question requires common knowledge of English. Make sure that the answer is in detail, long, consistent with the context, and requires general knowledge of English. To be less repetitive, please vary your language for each question. Give a proper explanation to answer, and if necessary, provide the definition of various terms. And conclude your answer if it's long. If you have used other resources (e.g., Merriam Webster's.) to answer the question, include citations in your answer. You don't need to paraphrase the context of your resources, but make sure that your answer is consistent and complete.

Q: When should whilst be used instead of while? For example, should I use the first or the second sentence? They don't do this whilst they do that. They don't do this while they do that. Which would be correct?.

A: I believe while and whilst are interchangeable, but whilst is more archaic and adds a nice flavoring to the sentence. That being said, 'whilst' doesn't seem to come up so often in the middle of a sentence as you had it there, so I would use 'while' in that case, even though both are grammatically correct. Whilst seems more apt to be put at the beginnings of sentences, e.g. Whilst going about my merry way I chanced upon a vagabond. Taking this serendipitous opportunity to satiate my bloodlust I decapitated him with a fork.
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Q: The US emergency telephone number 911 seems to be almost always pronounced as nine one one whereas the Porsche model is typically pronounced as nine eleven One reason I can think of for preferring 'nine one one' for the phone number is that there is no 'eleven' key on a phone. On the other hand, '0800' is often pronounced 'o eight hundred'. Is there a logical or historical reason for the different pronunciations?.

A: How a car manufacturer names its models is more of a marketing preference than anything, but in general you'll find that the Porche model is the norm. Ask any schoolchild to read aloud the number '911' and you'll get 'nine hundred and eleven', not 'nine one one'. The telephone number 9-1-1 was, as you speculated, spelled out specifically to prevent people - particularly children - from getting confused looking for the 'eleven' key on the telephone. I have heard this anecdotally countless times, but I'm having a hard time finding an authoritative source. Closest I can come are various 'history of 911' websites like this one: Dr. Phil Shaenman, head of the U.S. Fire Administration's research department, authored a paper explaining that children should be taught to dial 'nine-one-one,' and not 'nine-eleven.' He pointed out that a child's conceptual abilities prevent them from recognizing the difference between '11' and '1-1.'
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Q: Are shit, shat, and shitted all correct and fine to use as the past tense of shit? After a little bit of searching it seems that they are, with shat being Old English. Is any form more common in British or American English? Erik Kowal claims that shit is mostly American English and shat British English. [M]ost Americans don't change the verb form for the past tense of certain short verbs ending in -it. So fit, spit, shit, slit and pit are thus formed both in the present and the past tense as far as Americans are concerned, whereas people from Britain would almost always use fitted, spat, shat, slitted and pitted for the past tense. What about shitted?.

A:
The OED's etymology for this word is: The form shite represents OE. *scitan, pa. t. *scat, pa. pple. -sciten (in be-sciten), corresponding to OFris. *skita (NFris. skitj, pa. t. skad, pa. pple. skedden), MLG. schiten, Dutch schijten, OHG. scian (MHG. schian, mod.G. scheissen), ONor. skita (MSw. skita, Da. skide), f. OTeut. root skit-. The now more common form shit is influenced by the pa. pple. or the related sb. As far as modern/current forms go, it says that: The present tense is either shit or shite. For the past tense, the OED gives all three of shit, shat, shitted as current. So the answer to your question is yes. For the past participle, the OED provides only shit and shat, with shitten last appearing in the 19th century. That means you won't find any one 'correct' answer. Because those variant forms are all used natively by speakers born to the language, all are therefore 'correct'. Use whatever you please.
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