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Dear Puzzled in Beijing,
The most common form is ‘while’, so your phrase should be ‘The substitute whiled away the second half on the bench’. However, you sometimes see the spelling ‘wile’. There is more information at this link – http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-whi3.htm
Hope that helps
I have a question about the phrase “while (or wile) away the time” as in “The substitute w(h)iled away the second half on the bench” Well which is it? Or are both correct?
Puzzled of Beijing