"Wait on" or "Wait for"?

[Syt]

Ok, confused non-native speaker is confused.

When I was in school I was taught that you "wait for" something, as in: "I'm waiting for a friend", "I'll wait for the patch", "I'm waiting for bmolsson to make sense" etc.

"Wait on" is what a waiter does.

Yet, I noticed recently that people would post around the interwebs "I'll wait on a patch".

I'm aware that living languages keep evolving all the time and grammatical constructions or meanings of words can change all the time, but in this case I'm not sure if it's a change in language use or just bad internet grammar (see also: there/their/they're or it's/its).

[DontSayBanana]

Ok, confused non-native speaker is confused.

When I was in school I was taught that you "wait for" something, as in: "I'm waiting for a friend", "I'll wait for the patch", "I'm waiting for bmolsson to make sense" etc.

"Wait on" is what a waiter does.

Yet, I noticed recently that people would post around the interwebs "I'll wait on a patch".

I'm aware that living languages keep evolving all the time and grammatical constructions or meanings of words can change all the time, but in this case I'm not sure if it's a change in language use or just bad internet grammar (see also: there/their/they're or it's/its).

Colloquial, certainly.  I'm not sure if it still counts as bad grammar (it works syntactically, but not in context).

[MadImmortalMan]

It's used pretty interchangeably.



The one that gets me is waiting "in line" or "on line". Like in a queue.

[Slargos]

In line


On line.

[The Brain]

Native speakers don't know English.

[Josquius]

People on the internet are stupid.

[Brazen]

"Wait on" is an Americanisation and therefore an abominable desecration of the English language.

[Admiral Yi]

To me "wait on" has a slight connotation of impatience that "wait for" does not.

[garbon]

The one that gets me is waiting "in line" or "on line". Like in a queue.

I hate it here. "Next on line."

[KRonn]

I'm just waiting on a more definitive description of the differences between "wait for" and "wait on".     

Waiting on seems to have become somewhat synonymous with waiting for. 

[Zeus]

To me "wait on" has a slight connotation of impatience that "wait for" does not.

quoted for truth.

[Josephus]

"Wait on" is an Americanisation and therefore an abominable desecration of the English language.

"I'm not waiting on a lady...I'm just waiting on a friend."


Written by an Englishman, though.

[Josephus]

My biggest gripe is:

"I should of gone home."

Should of??

[grumbler]

To me "wait on" has a slight connotation of impatience that "wait for" does not.

I believe this is correct.  To "wait on" implies you can't do anything until someone/something else does something, while "wait for" implies that you are doing something in the meantime.

"I'll get some food while we wait for the next bus."

"I had to wait on the bus for what seemed like an hour."

[grumbler]

My biggest gripe is:

"I should of gone home."

Should of??

That's your biggest gripe?

"Of" for "have" is a mere colloquialism.  No one deliberately uses it in writing except when transliterating speech.  There are thousands of word substitutions like that, and always have been; "Ax" for "ask," and the like (probably more in Britain than the US).  I certainly don't see any utility to griping about it.