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I've just heard
with the meaning of wait for (as in wait for the bus). Up to now I had only encountered wait on with the meaning of attend to / serve.
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It's regional in U.S. English. Much of the U.S. says "waiting for you", but I believe that much of the South says "waiting on you". I don't know exactly what regions use "wait on" (not the Northeast), and a couple of minutes of Googling didn't find any answers, so I can't be more specific. |
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"Wait on" as a synonym for "wait for" is something I've heard much more in US English than British English, but it is used in that sense. They're pretty much synonymous. And yes, you're right that the sentence "your sister is waiting on you" is ambiguous, and so it's probably best to avoid using the colloquial "wait on" for this meaning. |
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Wait on has numerous meanings. In the OP’s example, it means, in the words of the OED’s definition, ‘remain in one place in expectation of’, in other words, wait for. The OED’s citations supporting this sense range from 1694 to 1984. The OED gives no indication of regional bias, but I wouldn’t say the use was ‘widely spread’. As for ambiguity, most of the time context removes it, and I would say it would generally do so in this case. |
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Google Ngrams ("wait on, wait for") shows the two phrases comparable up to 1700, and since then "wait on" getting progressively less common and "wait for" more so. It doesn't appear to show any significant difference in British and American usage since 1800. This search does not exclude the other sense of "wait on", so the 10:1 prevalence of "wait for" it shows for 2000 is clearly significantly lower than the ratio of uses with the meaning you are interested in. "Waiting on" is not a phrase I would ever use in this sense. I think that without context the sentence is indeed ambiguous. |
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I suggest that in the Queen's English, to wait on suggests to serve, not to wait for. Don't overlook the fact that English is the language of England, not that of the US. |
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It's commonly used in Computer Science; you wait on a mutex (A "mutex" is an object that regulates Mutual Exclusion) |
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IMO this exemplifies the erosion of semantic precision as a result of sloppy common usage. When I was a lad, we were taught that wait on is to be used only when to serve is meant; it was never correct to use wait on as a substitute for wait for. I notice, however, that this distinction is disappearing in American usage, particularly in the west. But I see it in both written and spoken usage in all regions. As some have stated here, though, wait on is rarely used for wait for in British or other non-US usage. The Computer Science use of wait on is sloppy. You are in fact waiting FOR the mutex to become free; you are in no sense serving the mutex. I, for one, only use wait on when I mean to serve. |
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According to bab.la, "to wait for" is a lot more common than "to wait on". (43% vs. 3%.) |
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Both are acceptable. A waitress waiting on a customer in a restaurant means exactly the same thing as a mother waiting on a child's response to a question. The inference is standing ready in a state of suspension pending some future activity. The server stands ready awaiting instructions from the table. |
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I think to a considerable extent the choice of preposition is regional, stylistic, or simply arbitrary, as other answers indicate. But in the UK at least, whereas I'm waiting for John is much more common than ...on John, there's a difference in how we add more detail...
...so it's always I'm waiting on John arriving or I'm waiting for John to arrive, never the reverse. If it's obvious what we're actually waiting for John to do, we often omit it - particularly if we're just waiting for him to arrive. But as mentioned elsewhere, even Brits are likely to use on, not for in respect of computer code waiting on a status flag (changing in value, which we invariably omit). |
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