HackiNews

chrismorgan

The submitted title

> The 'else' keyword is probably a literal translation from German (2020)

is editorialised, inaccurate, and very misleading.

The actual title: “if … then … else had to be invented!”

And the content doesn’t say anything about it being a literal translation from German; rather:

> What they do say is that this document was originally written in German and hastily translated into English. I think a carefully-chosen German word was probably translated as an archaic English word and then never revisited.

Wild speculation, and definitely nothing about literality of translation.

As for the author’s description of it being archaic, well, I’d call that misleading too. Bare “else”, arguably (definitely not colloquial in most dialects), but as “or else”, perfectly current.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me that someone considered the options, decided “otherwise”, “or else” too wordy and confusing in its own way, and so settled on bare “else” as the best choice (which I think it is), not how people mostly speak, but perfectly legitimate, and concise.

(In other words: I think we’d have settled on “else” even without the possible German step. This too is speculation, of course.)

flohofwoe
The most likely German candidate would be 'sonst', which would be both in common use and short enough for a programming language keyword. E.g. the most likely option for 'if-then-else' is 'wenn-dann-sonst', assuming that German-origin theory is right of course.
One thing that's mostly forgotten today is that German had a very rich 'corpus' of wonderful nerdy computer science words up until the 1990s which unfortunately has fallen out of fashion. Nowadays it's a pretty terrible 'pidgin dialect' when Germans talk about programming and computers to each other (to a point where it's much less awkward to just speak English in the first place lol).
- weinzierl
  Not sure what the original German version was, but
  falls-dann-sonst
  would be more correct, since "wenn" is temporal, like the English "when".
  Many Germans often use these wrongly in everyday speech, but mathematicians like Friedrich L. Bauer probably wouldn't.
  - manuel-rhdt
    
    As a German, my experience is that the typical use of "wenn" is more often synonymous to the English "if", rather than the English "when". The meaning of "wenn" is contextual. Using "wenn" to for conditionals is not a mistake of everyday speech but rather a feature of the language.
    The other German word "falls" is sometimes also translated as "if" but it carries a slightly different connotation. In typical use "falls" is used for an unlikely condition: "falls es morgen regnen sollte" -> "if it were to rain tomorrow". If "wenn" was used instead of "falls", the connotation would be more like a 50/50 probability. In the end, the if/when split of English is really not the same as the falls/wenn split of German. For computer programming "wenn" would likely have been preferred by German programmers.
    
    weinzierl
    
    Interesting. As a native speaker I always thought that "wenn" for the conditional case was only colloquial, but I couldn't find any real evidence for that. So, you are right about that and also about what you said for "falls".
    
    stavros
    
    I always understood "falls" as "in case" (as in, preparing for a slightly unlikely outcome), but my German is weak.
    
    1718627440
    
    Yeah, you can expand "falls" to "in dem Falle, dass".
  - cyxxon
    
    Nitpick: "wenn" is both temporal and conditional, whereas "falls" is only conditional, therefore it is considered good style to use "falls" if you want to make totally clear what you mean. It is, however, perfectly fine to use "wenn" for a konditionalen Nebensatz.
  - flohofwoe
    
    Yeah, but "wenn-dann-sonst" rolls better off the tongue ;)
  - b3orn
    
    > since "wenn" is temporal, like the English "when".
    Nope, "wenn" is both "if" and "when", it's not limited to time.
- wjnc
  As a non-native speaker of both English and German, I feel a little difference in usage. I liked this bit of slop:
  ‘The most significant nuanced departure is that "sonst" can mean "normally," "usually," or "in general," contrasting a specific event against a baseline of normality. "Else" cannot do this.’
  There is an etymological root to ‘sonst’ that is also the root of English ‘thus’. The German explanation would fit well in this story (but indeed no evidence presented).
  - flohofwoe
    
    Hmm, to me as native speaker, 'sonst' has pretty much only one meaning which is pretty much exactly 'or else'. There's a longer and 'more archaic' version 'ansonsten'.
    
    wjnc
    
    Forgive me for trying it out on you:
    “Er trinkt heute Kaffee, sonst trinkt er nur Tee.”
    
    flohofwoe
    
    It's often used for more immediate 'consequences', like "Ich muß los, sonst verpass ich meinen Zug" (I need to leave, otherwise I'll miss my train).
- secretsatan
  
  I worked on a GIS system in a german speaking company, it was very confusing, it was mostly programmed in english, apart from the things we we’re modelling, which had extremely specific and often long german names.
gavmor

I can't think of anything else.
flohofwoe

[deleted]
crooked-v

I would expect there''s plenty of pre-computer media with phrasing along the lines of "Do/don't do X, or else Y will happen."

slu

Else is a given name in Denmark (a variation of Elsa, I'm guessing). At university we had a professor with the surname True; so if he had a daughter, her name could've been Else True. We found that quite funny.

Else If would also be a possible name in Denmark.

But, according to Statistics Denmark[1], none of those combinations exists:

Women with the first name 'Else' 13,047 Men and women with the last name 'True' 166 No one has the name 'Else True'

Women with the first name 'Else' 13,047 Men and women with the last name 'If' 6 No one has the name 'Else If'

[1] https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/borgere/navne/hvor-man...

riggsdk

Other Danish'ness:
You'd translate the "else" keyword to "ellers". "if then else" => "hvis så ellers"
Related, the word "or" would be translated to "eller" (without the 's') "and or not" => "og eller ikke"
internet_points

Men with the first name 'Odd' 72
Men with the first name 'Even' 73
Men and women with the last name 'Even' 11
internet_points

Men with the first name 'Odd' 72
Men with the first name 'Even'
Men and women with the last name 'Even' 11
sherr
Also in the English speaking world, but getting rare: Elsie.
- vintermann
  I think most Elsies were originally Else, or had a mother or grandmother named it. In Germanic languages the final E is not silent as in English, so you have to spell it Elsie for English people to pronounce it approximately right when they read it off the page.
  - hbcdbff
    
    Elsie would be a completely wrong way of transcribing Else in most Germanic language.
    Elsa would be closer.
    Or “Elseh”.
    
    vintermann
    
    Elseh I'll grant, but it feels a lot less natively English, and you can't count on an American clerk or census taker to care about accurate transcription. It may have been closer to "that's not a name in English. Pick either Elsie or Elsa".
    And yeah, Elsa was common too.
    
    weinzierl
    
    Elsie sounds more like a German diminutive or pet name of Else than a strict transcription.
- GiveOver
  
  It's in the top 10 baby names in the UK
emayljames

I don't know if the article writer is north American, or possibly not familiar with traditional/native English, else they would know they are completely wrong it not being English.

rzzzt

British PHP uses 'perchance ... otherwise':

- https://aloneonahill.com/blog/if-php-were-british/#:~:text=E...

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33828509

magnat

It was this comment what made me realize #:~:text= in the URL isn't some custom, per-site JS hack or a weird way to name your anchors, but actual standard[0] way to link to a text on any page.
[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Reference/F...

divbzero

‘Else’ is not commonly used in English today but the meaning does fit. From Webster’s (1913):

Else, adverb or conjunction

1. Besides; except that mentioned; in addition; as, nowhere else; no one else.

2. Otherwise; in the other, or the contrary, case; if the facts were different.

“For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it.” – Ps. li. 16.

After ‘or’, else is sometimes used expletively, as simply noting an alternative. “Will you give thanks, … or else shall I?” – Shak.

IanCal

> Else’ is not commonly used in English today
I feel like I’m going crazy reading this thread today. Else is not a rare or archaic word.
isityettime

You can also say "elsewise", which to me still sounds a little old school, but more natural than just using "else" like we do in programming languages.
It's almost tempting to reach for "elsewhen" or "elsewhy", since we have "elsewhere". But if saying "elsewise" feels like chatting with a very elderly relative, saying those ones feels more like a seance with distant ancestors. But apparently it used to be a thing!
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewho#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewhither#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewhence#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsehow#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewards#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewhat#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/otherwhat#English
zarzavat
Else doesn't sound archaic to my ears.
"When you go shopping make sure to buy flour or else we won't be able to bake the cake"
"otherwise" is a more common word choice but "else" is definitely in the active vocabulary of modern English speakers.
- jolmg
  
  "or else" is redundant. One can omit one word or the other and it still works.
  > When you go shopping make sure to buy flour, or we won't be able to bake the cake.
  > When you go shopping make sure to buy flour, else we won't be able to bake the cake.
  EDIT: TIL: Dictionaries don't commonly define "else" as a conjunction, except for Wiktionary. Still sounds natural to my ears, so this is a surprise.
- chrismorgan
  That’s “or else”. Bare else is no longer common.
  - cowlevel
    
    There's also "everything else" and similar phrases
  - shawabawa3
    
    Someone else might disagree with that
secretsatan

It’s often used as a threat, without specifying the threat, do this, or else!
stavros

"Else" is definitely extremely commonly used in English today, just not in the US. The UK says "else" instead of otherwise. "We'll see if the bar is open, else we can go across the street".
TulliusCicero
Except for the phrase "or else!"
- mapontosevenths
  
  I came here to say this.
  I my head as a child I instantly understood and thought "Ahhh, they mean like 'OR else this happens.'
  I have always assumed it was a boolean logic thing meant to help show that it wasn't an AND, but 'or' had already been used as a keyword so they did 'or else' and dropped the reserved 'or'.
Braxton1980

"...or else you'll..."

esperent

It's always "or else" when used as a conjunction in modern English.

"Take your coat or else you'll regret it."

"Hurry or else you'll miss the bus."

Etc.

> if something is true, then do a thing, else do a different thing.

> That's just English, right? Except that it isn't

No, it is English, grammatically correct English. It's not idiomatic English but it's a perfectly fine sentence otherwise.

Idiomatic English would simply require adding an or

    if(x)
        do m
    orelseif(y)
        do n
    orelse
        do o

But of course a native English programmer would quickly recognize the or is redundant even if it is idiomatic, and drop it.

> I think a carefully-chosen German word was probably translated as an archaic English word and then never revisited

This is a weird reach. Else isn't an archaic word.

"Eat your dinner or else."

"If you don't do it someone else will have to."

Plus all the "or else" conjunction examples.

It was probably chosen because it was shorter than "otherwise" and not for any other reason.

vintermann

There were plenty of long English keywords in early computing: continue, dimension, equivalence, frequency, procedure etc. It seems it was mostly the Lisp folks who strictly shunned long keywords.
isaacfrond
It is nor far-fetched to suppose else is a translated German word because that is exactly what happened. The only question is which German word was is it.
- hobo123
  The only German that makes sense would be
  wenn ... dann ... sonst
  - emayljames
    
    I don't know if the article writer is north American, or possibly not familiar with traditional/native English, else they would know they are completely wrong it not being English.

akersten

> I can't use "else" as a conjunction in normal speech, only in computer programs.

sure you can. who's going to stop you?

wvenable
Hurry up, else we'll be late. You'd better leave now, else you'll miss the bus. Do what I say, else there'll be trouble.
- tetha
  If the addressed person does not comply, you can also add "or else" in a threatening tone.
  Such a funny movie.
  - jolmg
    
    Or just "else"... tun tun tun...
- stavros
  
  That is exactly the correct UK usage.
emayljames

Else could I?..
RachelF

someone else ;-)
mondobe

Perhaps after the robot uprising... https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-program

stkdump

The modern universal keywords if, else, for and while are good because they are fairly short and thus quick to type.

justinator
"loop" can all be typed with one finger, as the letters are all together on the qwerty keyboard, and the "o" repeats itself.
"while" on qwerty is sort of a chore.
- VMG
  
  What matters is the token count and logprob. It hurts but it's true
- jolmg
  When you can touch-type, it's better to have keys spread to use separate fingers. That way, you divide up the work. You have one finger still lifting while the other's already starting the next press.
  - justinator
    
    Try it. What's faster to type: one word with a total of 5 distinct letters, or one word with a total of 4 letters, three being distinct?
    I understand the theory when writing, you know: sentences. Writing code ain't that. I'm also not typing on a model M. This laptop's keys press down like 1 or 2mm at most. You actually only need to press down twice -- just move your finger from "l" to the "o" depress/press again for another "o" and move right over to the "p".
    Do you reprogram your keyboard so parentheses, square/angle brackets, etc can be typed with their respective hands? Naw. When people type numbers all day, are they delighted to use the row of numbers up top, or a numpad? Never have I ever.
    
    jolmg
    
    I use one finger when typing "loop", because it doesn't make sense to do otherwise given how the respective keys are on QWERTY. That just means the word "loop" sucks.
    Regarding parentheses/brackets, I said "separate fingers", not "separate hands". I do use separate fingers for parentheses/brackets.
    The numpad is a weird thing. When I've (rarely) needed it for sustained number capturing, I do typically stick to one finger because it's easy to get lost with multiple. Not sure why. It could just be lack of practice with the numpad.
- opan
  Usually for speed and avoiding strain you want to incorporate as many fingers as possible. In fact it's a common mark against dvorak online that "ls -l" is all typed with the right pinky (not an issue in the workman layout luckily).
  - fy20
    
    Also remember this was typed with typewriters. That gives its own set of constraints. It's quicker to type two different characters than the same character twice in a row, as you need to wait for the typebar to return enough.
    
    opan
    
    This is a good visual to understand it intuitively but your finger itself has a similar issue. In rhythm games like Taiko no Tatsujin and Muse Dash you only have two distinct notes/lanes but you typically play with 4 (or more) keys. A group of 3 red notes in Taiko is way easier to play by alternating hands back and forth than by spamming one key as fast as you can with the same finger. This somewhat applies to Rock Band as well with alternating strumming being useful for long stretches of notes close together, but a lot of people just brute force their way past that without learning alt strumming. For Taiko I think the alternating is much more important and you won't last without learning it.
- stkdump
  Using more fingers allows for faster typing.
  - Cordiali
    
    There's a joke in here somewhere about machinists.
- jibalt
  w TAB in a properly configured emacs
  - justinator
    
    Correct me if I'm wrong– I haven't check on THAT corpse– but couldn't you configure w TAB to be a shortcut for whatever you want (or make your own?).
divbzero
Yes, otherwise is more natural but less terse.
- jordigh
  
  We often write "otherwise" in mathematics:
  https://arxiv.org/html/1501.05438v2#:~:text=otherwise,-%2C
  https://arxiv.org/html/1302.5008v3#:~:text=otherwise
  https://arxiv.org/html/1501.05438v2#:~:text=otherwise,-%2E
  In fact, I think that's the most common alternative, not "else".
- autoexec
  
  "or else" works too but that's still three extra characters
alexfortin
I'm writing some Crystal (which has Ruby-like syntax) and I'd add `unless` to the list. I like it!
- egeozcan
  "Unless" feels like adding come-from (next to goto) to a language. A statement/flow should not change its meaning after being declared/written IMHO.
  edit: My criticism is for the suffix version to be clear. Unless / else is actually cool.
  - jibalt
    
    `destroy_world() if $angry;` is Perl syntax. And Python has `destroy_word() if angry else live_long_and_prosper()`.
    (But it's not remotely like come-from.)
    P.S. in re the other response, "unless" is "if not". "until" is "while not".
  - NooneAtAll5
    
    wdym? "unless" is literally "while not", no come-from mechanics
    
    amszmidt
    
    “unless” is “if not” — it is not generally looping construct.
- jibalt
  `unless` came from Perl, Ruby adopted it, and so of course did Crystal.
  - amszmidt
    
    ”unless” already existed in early Lisps in the 1970s…
    
    pasc1878
    
    Also in BCPL from late 1960s

parasec

wild speculation indeed. According to Google Book Ngrams, the word "else" has been used in english books as far back as the tool permits (1500s) and can be found everywhere - from books to state calendars.

lazyasciiart

This guy better figure out how to use English, or else something bad will happen.

zacharyvoase

it was probably a rote translation of the German word ‘sonst’

tacker2000

Yes something like wenn…dann…sonst?
I remember I heard this structure at Uni at some point.
ashton314

Das denke ich auch.
I found it strange (merkwürdig) that they didn’t mention this in the article.
itronitron

https://dict.leo.org/german-english/sonst

pram

Don’t even get me started on “elif”

YeahThisIsMe

That's a perfectly cromulent Turkish name.
tomrod

I like elif. It means exactly what I want it to mean!

jibalt

I think the headline is nonsense.

I was going to mention the MAD language by Bernard Galler et. al. that used whenever/otherwise, which I encountered in a book in the local library back in the days when everyone was coming up with "structured" programming languages, but then I scrolled to the bottom of the article ...

deepsun

I remember it felt odd when XSLT code provided "otherwise" instead of "else".

dwd

What about Kierkegaard?

He wrote Either/Or or Enten – Eller in Danish in 1843.

Else in Danish is Ellers.

emayljames

I don't know if the article writer is north American, or possibly not familiar with traditional/native English, else they would know they are completely wrong it not being English.

bitwize

No. English has used else to mean "otherwise" since before computers came along. Wiktionary offers this quote from Call of the Wild (1903):

"He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, and his first experience taught him an unforgetable lesson. It is true, it was a vicarious experience, else he would not have lived to profit by it."

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/else#Conjunction

There's also "or else", as made famous in crime dramas: "Meet me by the docks at midnight. Bring the money. Come alone. No cops... or else!" But in other usage it can of course be followed by something. "He had to get to work on time, or else he might be fired."

krautsauer

"or else" is right in the second image, and it's clearly not "else".
Even if it hasn't been invented as the author claims, the question of who used it in code first is a valid one, right?

rickdeckard

Nice article.

Funny enough, even though I know if..then..else by heart for decades now, I also spent a few seconds on that 1960 arrow diagram of ALGOL60...

fcarraldo

If something were to be true, then foo.

Or if this other thing were to be true, then bar.

If it’s something else, then baz.

hekkle

OR if is ambiguous, and wouldn't work like an 'else if' statement. I think you mean XOR.

hommelix

Else can be found in English text prior to computer existence. Else can't be found in a German dictionary as a conjunction [1]. The first suggestion in Duden is the name for alder tree in lower German. Second suggestion is a firstname. If a word would come from German, it seems the first step would be to look up in a German dictionary.

While the look up for history of computer language is interesting, the conclusion is completely wrong.

[1] https://www.duden.de/suchen/dudenonline/Else

morsch

The claim is that it is a literal translation, not that it is a loan word from German. Ie the Germans wrote their paper for this new control flow in German wenn/dann/sonst, then took their Langenscheidt and looked up "sonst".
https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/sonst
https://de.langenscheidt.com/deutsch-englisch/sonst
isomorphic

I don't think the article author is concluding what you think they are.
The HN title reads "literal translation," which I didn't take to mean "literally".
The linked article doesn't really have a title. The article author states [...] "I think a carefully-chosen German word was probably translated as an archaic English word and then never revisited. Unfortunately we do not have the original German text to consult."

stavros

Every single comment I've seen here seems to miss that, in the UK, "else" is the preferred word to use in these contexts.

"We'd better hurry, else we'll be late", or "I could go to a pub, else we can just stay home" is exactly the correct UK usage.

I guess the UK largely isn't up yet, hence this sort of comment missing.

dvh

How would you mime "else" in charades?

saintfire

Article states else is archiac English but later says someone called it ignorantly incorrect English and suggested using "or".

Ive always assumed it was effectively "otherwise" but shortened to "or else" -> "else".

Given the alternative to use "or" as the first pushback I feel that acts as confirmation. I prefer else because "or" has implications in boolean and bitwise logic that else doesn't.

andai

Some languages also have an "unless" keyword!

duskwuff
Perl also has "until" as the inverse of "while".
(It'll also let you use "unless ... else ..." - but please don't.)
- jibalt
  
  But elsif

Frieren

If ... then ... otherwise ...

Fixed!

hcs

if ... then ... neht ... fi

raverbashing

Also, one thing that has been happening without much awareness in the history of computer languages: shorter identifiers win over long identifiers

Why not { } instead of begin and end?

def or fn over function/lambda (or just () => now)

Symbols are confusing at first but become practical after a bit

About TFA: Also 'if/or' would make people confuse logical or with bitwise or, so I guess that's why it was eschewed

baggy_trough

Give up this mad idea, or else.

LocalH

what

xdennis

> I can't use "else" as a conjunction in normal speech, only in computer programs.

Not true. Here's an example from 1876 in which "else" is used as a conjunction.

> My brother is poor, and I want to look as much like him as I can, else he may feel distant from me.

-- George Eliot ( https://www.victorianlondon.org/etexts/eliot/deronda-0047.sh... )

---

Here's an example of "if ... else" from the 1914 translation of Crime and Punishment ( https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment/Part_IV/... ):

> Perhaps it will all come back, but now if you love me, give me up . . . else I shall begin to hate you, I feel it.

stldev

1611 Psalm 51:16 (KJV) uses else as a conjunction as well.
lukasgelbmann
> > Perhaps it will all come back, but now if you love me, give me up . . . else I shall begin to hate you, I feel it.
It’s not being used in the programming if-else sense here. He’s not saying “if you don’t love me, I shall begin to hate you”. He’s saying “if you don’t give me up, I shall begin to hate you”.
- Garlef
  if (you love me):
  give me up
  else:
  I shall begin to hate you # i feel it
- zmgsabst
  
  The language construct is exactly that if-then-else, you’re just making the intended inference.
  A ? B : C => !B -> C

gjvc

schizophrenic nonsense

childintime

What else could "else" be than german? /s

Note that "what else" is completely proper, standard English, and it has been for centuries.

wewewedxfgdf

The English language origin is from programming if/then/else

dboreham

Very not true.

rapidaneurism

What if time travel was involved?

lioeters

  if time travel is involved
    an effect may come before its cause
  else if spooky action at a distance
    is allowed, in space or in time
    an event may cause an effect in the past
  else none of this is true or false

`j` / `k`	Down or up a comment
`h` / `l`	Previous or next link
`?`	This help

The 'else' keyword is probably a literal translation from German (2020) (github.com/e-n-f)

Keyboard shortcuts