Month: January 2008

“ARTIC FRONT”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Misspellings

I saw this in a headline on the Weather Channel.

Problem:
The adjective is misspelled.

Explanation:
The correct spelling of the adjective is “arctic”.

Wondering about the frequency of the misspelling of “arctic”, I searched Google separately for each of “artic front” and “arctic front” with the quotation marks included in each search. I got about 3,110 matches for the former and about 44,300 matches for the latter. That’s a dominance ratio of more than 14:1 in favor of the correct spelling.

I then searched Google for each of “artic” and “arctic” (with no quotation marks necessary for the searches). I got approximately 11,300,000 matches for the misspelled adjective(!) and approximately 63,000,000 matches for the correctly spelled adjective. That’s a dominance ratio of less than 5.6:1 in favor of the correct spelling.

That’s equivalent to saying that more than fifteen percent of all occurrences of this adjective on the Web are misspelled! Shame on the Weather Channel for having at least one staff member in that 15%. The adjective “arctic” is a weather term, after all!

I believe that the misspelling of “arctic” as “artic” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler to say “artic” than to say “arctic” (given that it takes concentration to say the hard “c” sound immediately before the “t” sound), and speech has a spillover effect into spelling.

Solution:
“ARCTIC FRONT”

“Whether or not” vs. “Whether”

Common English Blunders, Conjunctions, Devolution toward Simpler, Redundancies, Versus

My post yesterday about “Whether” vs. “If” reminded me about “Whether or not”.

Problem:
Some people use “whether or not” when “whether” is appropriate (and complete!).

Explanation:
It is overkill to include “or not” in sentences such as “He will not say whether or not he wants to leave the company.” This example can be correctly rewritten as “He will not say whether he wants to leave the company.”

In this example, the conjunction “whether” introduces a clause whose uncertainty is unknown. Adding “or not” after “whether” adds no value in such situations. One could say that adding “or not” introduces unnecessary redundancy.

There is a valid use for including “or not” somewhere in a “whether” sentence: when one wants to say “regardless of whether” or “no matter whether”.

For example, both of these sentences contain “whether” and “or not” and are valid:

  • “We must depart for the train station in one hour whether or not you have found your swimsuit.”
  • “We must depart for the train station in one hour whether you have found your swimsuit or not.”

Either of the above two sentences is a valid substitute for either of the following two sentences:

  • “We must depart for the train station in one hour regardless of whether you have found your swimsuit.”
  • “We must depart for the train station in one hour no matter whether you have found your swimsuit.”

I believe that the use of “whether or not” in speech as a substitute for “regardless of whether” or “no matter whether” supports my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler to say “whether or not” (four syllables) than to say “regardless of whether” (six syllables) or “no matter whether” (five syllables).

Solution:
Use “whether” to introduce a clause whose certainty is unknown. Use “whether or not” in speech as a substitute for “regardless of whether” or “no matter whether”; otherwise, avoid using “whether or not”.

“Whether” vs. “If”

Common English Blunders, Conjunctions, Devolution toward Simpler, Versus

I saw throughout a technical document the use of the conjunction “if” where the conjunction “whether” was required.

Problem:
The conjunction “if” is not a synonym for the conjunction “whether” in formal writing.

Explanation:
A technical document should contain formal writing. I recently reviewed a technical document that contained such sentences as “Call the LDAP Screening class to determine if the LDAP server is affected.” This exemplifies incorrect use of the conjunction “if”; correct use is exemplified by a sentence such as “If an association is not found, remove that association from the list to be deleted.”

The “Call the LDAP Screening …” sentence should be rewritten as “Call the LDAP Screening class to determine whether the LDAP server is affected.”

The problem with using “if” to introduce a clause indicating uncertainty is that the use of “if” can sometimes create ambiguity (especially in writing).

For example, “Let him know if he has won the contest.” could mean:

  • “Let him know, if he has won the contest.” (Don’t let him know, if he has not won the contest.)
    -OR-
  • “Let him know whether he has won the contest.” (No matter how the contest ends, let him know.)

I believe that the use of “if” as a substitute for “whether” — even in formal writing — supports my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s much simpler to say or write “if” than to say or write “whether”. The one-syllable conjunction “if” can be spoken quickly. The two-syllable conjunction “whether” demands that its first syllable be held longer than average so that the listener doesn’t confuse the word with the noun “weather” upon first hearing it (without the context of a complete sentence).

Solution:
Use “whether” to introduce a clause whose certainty is unknown. Use “if” to introduce a clause in the indicative that is presupposed to be consistent with fact. Use “if” to introduce a clause in the subjunctive that describes an occurrence that is presupposed to be contrary to fact.