Conjunctions

“… for the both of us.”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Conjunctions, Hypercorrection, Pronouns

My wife heard this a couple of days ago on television.

Problem:
The definite article “the” is incorrect in this phrase.

Explanation:
The word “both” is an adjective that means two together (e.g., “I saw both suspects.”), a pronoun that means the one as well as the other (e.g., “Both of them were flying to Paris.”, or a conjunction that means alike or equally (e.g., “Jim is both tall and handsome.”).

It’s clear, then, that the word “both” was used as a pronoun in the phrase that my wife heard.

Pronouns do not take articles in front of them, so “the both” is always incorrect.

Beyond that, one can see that “the” (or “a”) should never precede “both” in a sentence.

For fun, I searched Google for “the both” (with quotation marks) and got about 2,130,000 matches. Some of those matches were for grammatically correct forms such as “the Both Sides Now album”; most, though, were incorrect.

I believe that this common English blunder sometimes indicates hypercorrection: if “both” is good, then “the both” must be better. Wrong!

Solution:
“… for both of us.”

“If” vs. “Whether”

Common English Blunders, Conjunctions

I saw a personal email message the other day that illustrates well the difference between “if” and “whether” — two conjunctions that are not synonyms.

Problem:
Writing the conjunction “if” in place of “whether” — even in informal writing — can confuse readers.

Explanation:
I wrote about these two conjunctions back in January, but I have since found a simple example that illustrates why “if” is dangerous as a substitute for “whether”.

The example appeared in an email message from a woman who was arranging a party:

  • “Please let me know if you’ll be coming to my party.”

Changing the order of the sentence, we get:

  • “If you’ll be coming to my party, then please let me know.”

This implies that the message writer was not asking to hear from message readers who would not be attending her party.

However, I talked to the message writer and learned that she wanted to hear from everyone who got her email message. This would ensure that she had confirmation either way — “Yes, I’ll be coming to your party.” or “No, I won’t be coming to your party.” — from each of the message recipients.

The message writer should have used “whether” instead of “if” in her sentence to ensure that she got confirmation either way (“yay” or “nay”):

  • “Please let me know whether you’ll be coming to my party.”

Solution:
Be careful with using “if” as a substitute for “whether” in whatever you write — even personal email messages. Otherwise, you might not get the results that you desire.

“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”.