doubt ?

[perhaps love]

I doubt whether she will come
I doubt that she will arrive on time

"whether" and "that" were used.which word is use common?

thanx...

[BobK]

Originally Posted by perhaps love

I doubt whether she will come
I doubt that she will arrive on time

"whether" and "that" were used.which word is use common?

thanx...

'Whether' is more common in Br E, but not defunct in Am E. To my ear, 'doubt whether' sounds more open to being proved wrong. But 'doubt that' usage in the Br E still vastly outweighs 'doubt whether', although much less so than in Am E.

The Corpus of Contemporary American (a 360 million word collection) has only 162 hits for 'doubt whether'. The much smaller BNC (100 million words) has nearly twice as many:

[Davies/BYU] The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
1 DOUBT WHETHER 161
But (also COCA)
1 DOUBT THAT 4837
- more than thirty times.

[Davies/BYU] BYU-BNC: British National Corpus
1 DOUBT WHETHER 245
(Also BNC)
1 DOUBT THAT 2341
- less than ten times.

b

[perhaps love]

Originally Posted by BobK

'Whether' is more common in Br E, but not defunct in Am E. To my ear, 'doubt whether' sounds more open to being proved wrong. But 'doubt that' usage in the Br E still vastly outweighs 'doubt whether', although much less so than in Am E.

The Corpus of Contemporary American (a 360 million word collection) has only 162 hits for 'doubt whether'. The much smaller BNC (100 million words) has nearly twice as many:

[Davies/BYU] The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
1 DOUBT WHETHER 161
But (also COCA)
1 DOUBT THAT 4837
- more than thirty times.

[Davies/BYU] BYU-BNC: British National Corpus
1 DOUBT WHETHER 245
(Also BNC)
1 DOUBT THAT 2341
- less than ten times.

b

thanks for yr help. i found information that i search (:

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by BobK

'Whether' is more common in Br E, but not defunct in Am E. To my ear, 'doubt whether' sounds more open to being proved wrong. But 'doubt that' usage in the Br E still vastly outweighs 'doubt whether', although much less so than in Am E.

The Corpus of Contemporary American (a 360 million word collection) has only 162 hits for 'doubt whether'. The much smaller BNC (100 million words) has nearly twice as many:

[Davies/BYU] The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
1 DOUBT WHETHER 161
But (also COCA)
1 DOUBT THAT 4837
- more than thirty times.

[Davies/BYU] BYU-BNC: British National Corpus
1 DOUBT WHETHER 245
(Also BNC)
1 DOUBT THAT 2341
- less than ten times.

b

At first glance this would suggest that people use "that" far more often than "whether" as a conjunction after "doubt".
I doubt that.

[BobK]

Originally Posted by Raymott

At first glance this would suggest that people use "that" far more often than "whether" as a conjunction after "doubt".
I doubt that.

I missed that.

Raymott's point - for the slower-witted (like me ) - is that the search criteria I used (just the words) didn't distinguish between "that" as a conjunction, "that" as a pronoun, and "that" as an adjective. I don't doubt that* there's a way to get BNC to distinguish them, but I don't know how.

* 'In phrases like this that express certainty, "whether" can not be used.

b

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by BobK

I missed that.

Raymott's point - for the slower-witted (like me ) - is that the search criteria I used (just the words) didn't distinguish between "that" as a conjunction, "that" as a pronoun, and "that" as an adjective. I don't doubt that* there's a way to get BNC to distinguish them, but I don't know how.

* 'In phrases like this that express certainty, "whether" can not be used.

b

I just did a search for "doubt that the" cf. "doubt whether the".
There's still a preference for "that" but, as you say, a legitimate search has to be planned with all the possibilities in mind if you want a valid result.