Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

I had to do a scary thing at work, which is tell an email chain made up of people more senior than me that a couple of them are barking up an unhelpful tree.

I can tell I was scared because I got more formal in my language. "Positioning themselves as the beneficiaries..."

I even changed a "while" to "whilst," which I hate because it feels so pretentious to me, but I know it's just a normal word for Brits and I'm trying to seem normal to them.

An Australian friend told me "Whilst, amongst, amidst, unbeknownst, some of Australians’ favourite words!"

Which I thought was interesting because I feel very differently about all of those words.

1. Unbeknownst: great, wish I got to use it more but sadly it's so rare
2. Amidst: good
3. Amongst: fine, but I would reach for among first, myself
4. Whilst: makes my teeth hurt

So it's not just the -st ending! Something else must be going on in my brain.