meaning - "In a while" vs. "for a while"


I recently got a message that says



Haven't heard anything from you in a while.



I always thought that the right way to say this would be to use for insdead of in. Are both versions correct? Would there be a difference in meaning?



Answer



I'm trying to capture a vague idea floating in my head. Not sure I can explain adequately.


First off, both "in a while" and "for a while" are grammatical and idiomatic per se. However, to me, "for a while" would mean that their hearing from you is an ongoing process, which you interrupted for some time — or well, for a while —, but then resumed. Which is not what the sentence is supposed to express.


What you want instead is "in a while", which also means "for some period of time" but without implying that the contact has been re-established already, or indeed ever will be. Which is the whole point of that sentence, after all. It's just a reminder that it should be.


So I would most definitely say, "Haven't heard anything from you in a while".


This might be just my dialect/idiolect, though. I haven't checked any corpora.


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