DO YOU KNOW WHETHER THERE WILL BE STORMY WEATHER?

Drawn in Doodle Buddy for Ipad

I have a problem. A finger problem. You see, my brain knows the correct words to use in certain situations but my fingers persist in insisting to type the wrong ones. One of these situations is whether to use weather or whether. Now, I know that weather is the word for all of that stuff that comes out of or happens to be in the sky. Cloudy. Sunny. Rainy. Stormy. But for some reason, every once in awhile when I am re-reading something I've written, I come across weather when I meant to write whether (and sometimes even wheather!!!). So, essentially, this blog post is an attempt to train my fingers.

Whether is appropriate when you are writing about two things; whether you want to chose one or the other. Will the weather be stormy? Or will it be not stormy? Whether there will be stormy weather. To be more precise, according to Dictionary.com, whether is "used to introduce a single alternative, the other being implied or understood, or some clause or element not involving alternatives" as in I don't know whether to take a raincoat (or not) to deal with today's weather.

Conversely, the specific definition of weather according to Dictionary.com is "the state of the atmosphere with respect to wind, temperature, cloudiness, moisture, pressure, etc." or "a strong wind or storm or strong winds and storms collectively." 

Really, for me anyway, it is not that I get confused on whether to use weather or whether, it is the fact that my typing fingers refuse to cooperate! I hope yours - and from now on mine - will behave better.

-The Wordsy Woman