On 3/28/19 3:22 PM, Thomas Stüfe wrote: > On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 3:41 PM Andrew Dinn <ad...@redhat.com> wrote: > >> s/iff/if >> The second of those was actually intended to be iff. This is a common >> abbreviation used by English/US mathematicians and logicians to write >> 'if and only if' (it is also sometimes written as <=>). Since you didn't >> recognize it I guess I really need to write it out in full. > > Oh, don't worry on my account. I am not a native speaker nor a > mathematician. You could leave iff and add [sic] to make everyone curious > and start googling "iff" :)
Dijkstra: The notation iff is used for "if and only if". A few years ago, while lecturing in Denmark, I used Fif instead, reasoning that since "if and only if" was a symmetric concept its notation should be symmetric also. Without knowing it, I had punned in Danish and the audience laughed, for fif in Danish means "a little trick". I resolved thereafter to use fif so I could tell my joke, but my colleagues talked me out of it. :-) -- Andrew Haley Java Platform Lead Engineer Red Hat UK Ltd. <https://www.redhat.com> EAC8 43EB D3EF DB98 CC77 2FAD A5CD 6035 332F A671
