"Is the difference between "*whether or not*" an..."

https://arbital.com/p/5yr

by Sylvain Chevalier Aug 22 2016


Is the difference between "whether or not" and "if" trivial in english (I'm French) ? I think I understand the third point in the Caveats section. However I only understand the last sentence from context. Is there already an explanation on Arbital of the difference between "whether or not" and "if" as used here ?


Comments

Patrick Stevens

This is not universally agreed-upon, but I use " decides whether or not holds" to mean " outputs if holds, and outputs otherwise".

If I said " decides if holds", I would consider that ambiguous: it might mean " outputs if holds" without the requirement on 's behaviour if doesn't hold.