Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 13:34:07 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712111834.NAA25663@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: Re: whether X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1151 X-From-Space-Date: Thu Dec 11 13:34:10 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Robin Turner: > "She knew whether he was hungry." > > Is this really Standard English? Yes. > I have never heard "whether" used like > this, though I suppose it might be common in the U.S. Us Brits would just > say "She knew he was hungry." This is why I only work on English: I can judge when other people's reports are accurate. If someone made claims like yours about a language I don't know well, I'd be at their mercy, and would end up drawing conclusions from false premises. Anyway, what can I say? Your report is false to an extent so blatant that I can scarcely believe you mean it, and am hard pressed to think of a way to end your delusion. Try asking a sample of ordinary English speakers whether the two sentences mean the same thing. As for "whether" Qs in British English, you could consult, say, Quirk et al's Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. BTW, if you are British, where did you acquire your cognitivist proclivities? --And p.s. It occurs to me that you might speak a nonstandard dialect where "whether" is much less common than "if". Do you find "She knew if he was hungry" any better? Where did you grow up?