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It's not important if it rains or not.

Does this sentence sound odd to you because of using 'if' instead of using 'whether'?

whitecap
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  • No, you can't use "if" in this kind of interrogative conditional. Only "whether" is possible. The answer you got below is wrong, I'm afraid. – BillJ Apr 24 '17 at 07:06

1 Answers1

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It's not important if it rains or not.

There's nithing wrong with the sentence; it's grammatical.

You can use either whether or if with "or not" in end position, with no difference in meaning. However, the use of whether is far more common and idiomatic in the sentence.

You can also use "or not" immmediately after whether as follows:

It's not important whether or not it rains.

Khan
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  • Sorry Khan, but that is incorrect. With this kind of interrogative conditional clause, it is not possible to use "if". Only "whether" is permitted. – BillJ Apr 24 '17 at 07:08
  • @ BillJ can you elaborate on this, please? – whitecap Apr 24 '17 at 07:19
  • @whitecap Closed interrogative subordinate clauses are marked by one or other of the interrogative subordinators "if" or "whether", and typically they are interchangeable, but not always. One construction where "if" is not permitted is the so-called 'exhaustive conditional', the kind that appears in adjunct function. Briefly, the OP's example means "It's not important if it rains" and "it's not important if it doesn't rain", so all possibilities are 'exhausted', hence the name of the construction. – BillJ Apr 24 '17 at 08:20
  • http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/if-or-whether?q=if+whether – Khan Apr 24 '17 at 15:14
  • The examples in the link are not exhaustive conditionals and hence nor relevant here. – BillJ Apr 24 '17 at 17:38
  • @BillJ, I think the use of if isn't wrong, but the use of whether is more common and idiomatic in the context of this sentence. – Khan Apr 24 '17 at 18:08
  • You're thinking of examples like "I don't know if/whether she'll accept or not". But this is not the same construction as the OP's example which is a special kind of subordinate interrogative called an "exhaustive conditional". Note also that you can say "Whether it rains or not is not important", but you can't say *If it rains or not is not important". – BillJ Apr 24 '17 at 18:36