On Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 04:16:58 -0500, Jan Depner wrote: > > I have to disagree with this - it may not be a german word, but it > > certainly is an English one - its been in consistant use in scientific > > literature for ~30 years. > > And iff has been in constant use in mathematics for over 40 years and > shows up in mathematics textbooks and papers but it's still not a > recognized English word. It's not in Webster's Unabridged (although > FUBAR is ;-).
Iff is in the OED: "A written form of abbreviation of the phrase `if and only if', always read as `if and only if', used in Math. and Logic to introduce a condition that is necessary as well as sufficient, or a statement that is implied by and implies the preceding one." First recorded use is in 1955, J. L. KELLEY Gen. Topology vii. 232 F is equicontinuous at x iff there is a neighborhood of x whose image under every member of F is small. So maybe affordance will go in, in 20 years time :) - Steve
