https://github.com/e-n-f/if-then-else/blob/master/if-then-else.md

Fun read, thanks!

Apropos: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500092\|https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500092

… Is this person not a native English speaker? :confused: That’s the only reason I can think of for baffling statements like this: > I think a carefully-chosen German word was probably translated as an archaic English word “Else” is not archaic! People really do say things along the lines of “if x then y else z”. This presentation is very strange to me, as a native English speaker.

As a non-native English speaker, I don’t see the use of “else” that often. “Otherwise” and “if not” are used far more often, I think.

“Else” as a conjunction seems like more of a “people born 100 or so years ago trying to sound fancy” thing to me.

Which, of course, means I’m not terribly surprised that a bunch of academics who were born 100 or so years ago would have used it that way.

I’d like to propose a truce: John Backus can use “else” as a conjunction, and I can use “because” as a preposition.

I think in more typical usage, you’d say “or else”, in which case it functions as an adverb modifying the conjunction “or”. But I don’t want to write a parser with an “or else” keyword.

yeah, if i heard someone begin an utterance with else conversationally, i think i’d assume it was some form of left-edge deletion of or

I don’t think I’d ever use it in conversation. It feels like a literary construction to me.

yeah definitely. but i think that might depend on what variety of english you speak

It’s not as common, but I also wouldn’t find it strange or archaic if someone used it