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April 13

if this will fix your problem

Recently I wrote the sentence:

A: I'm not sure if this will fix your problem or not, but it's worth a try.

But then I read it over again and it seemed "off" to me, so I changed it to:

B: I'm not sure whether this will fix your problem or not, but it's worth a try.

Is sentence A grammatically correct? Is sentence B grammatically correct? Is one preferred over the other or are they both acceptable? OptoFidelty (talk) 17:40, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A is descriptively correct, in that "if" is commonly used in this case even though the textbooks say to use "whether". B is correct, both descriptively and prescriptively.

Be like me and use B, and you'll have that inner glow that religion is powerless to bestow. (Apologies to Miss C. F. Forbes (1817-1911)) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:52, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like "if" is winning out over "whether".^[1] Even more common is to omit the conjunction ("I'm not sure this will fix your problem or not, but it's worth a try.").^[2] The part "or not" is IMO redundant; whether to use this (or not) seems a matter of taste, but I get more GBS hits for just "not sure this will help but" than for "not sure this will help or not, but". --Lambiam 21:41, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting that you use "whether" in a very similar construction: whether to use this (or not) seems a matter of taste. You certainly cannot use "if" there. Nor could you use it in a variation of option B: Whether this will fix your problem or not, I'm not sure. The "if" is only available in the original word sequence, as per option A. "Whether" is like the universal donor; "if" would kill certain transfusees, as it were. Why risk it? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:02, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is also a matter of one's taste whether one prefers an inner or an outer glow – or perhaps no glow at all, but merely an inward tranquillity which linguistic prescription is powerless to disturb. --Lambiam 10:59, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]