Shift vs If - What's the difference?
shift | if |
To change, swap.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03, author=William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter
, volume=100, issue=2, page=87, magazine=(American Scientist)
, title= To move from one place to another; to redistribute.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=68, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= To change position.
(obsolete) To change (one's clothes); also to change (someone's) underclothes.
*, II.ii.2:
* Shakespeare
To change gears (in a car).
(typewriters) To move the keys of a typewriter over in order to type capital letters and special characters.
(computer keyboards) To switch to a character entry mode for capital letters and special characters.
(computing) To manipulate a binary number by moving all of its digits left or right; compare rotate.
(computing) To remove the first value from an array.
To dispose of.
To hurry.
(Ireland, vulgar, slang) To engage in sexual petting.
To resort to expedients for accomplishing a purpose; to contrive; to manage.
* L'Estrange
To practice indirect or evasive methods.
* Sir Walter Raleigh
(historical) a type of women's undergarment, a slip
*
* '>citation
* 1919 ,
a change of workers, now specifically a set group of workers or period of working time
an act of shifting; a slight movement or change
* Sir H. Wotton
* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=November 7, author=Matt Bai, title=Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds, work=New York Times
, passage=The generational shift Mr. Obama once embodied is, in fact, well under way, but it will not change Washington as quickly — or as harmoniously — as a lot of voters once hoped.}}
(US) the gear mechanism in a motor vehicle
(computing) a bit shift
(baseball) The infield shift.
The act of sexual petting.
(archaic) A contrivance, device to try when other methods fail
* 1596 , Shakespeare, History of King John
(archaic) a trick, an artifice
* 1593 , Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
* Macaulay
* Shakespeare
* Dryden
In building, the extent, or arrangement, of the overlapping of plank, brick, stones, etc., that are placed in courses so as to break joints.
(mining) A breaking off and dislocation of a seam; a fault.
Supposing that, assuming that, in the circumstances that;
Supposing that;
Although;
(computing) In the event that a statement is true (a programming statement that acts in a similar manner).
Whether;
* 1715–1717 , , Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind , Canto III:
(usually hyperbolic) Even if; even in the circumstances that.
* 2004', (singers), “'''If It’s The Last Thing I Do” (song), in ''You Do Your Thing (album):
(informal) An uncertainty, possibility, condition, doubt etc.
* 1709, Susannah Centlivre, The Busy Body'', Act III, in John Bell (ed.), ''British Theater , J. Bell (1791),
* 1791 January, "Richard?on’s Chemical Principles of the Metallic Arts''", in ''The Monthly Review , R. Griffiths,
* {{quote-news, year=2013, date=April 9, author=Andrei Lankov, title=Stay Cool. Call North Korea’s Bluff., work=New York Times
, passage=Even if they managed to strike Japan, the United States or South Korea with nuclear weapons — a big if , given that they do not have a reliable delivery system — they could not save themselves from ultimate defeat.}}
As a noun shift
is (computing) a modifier key whose main function is shifting between two or more functions of any of certain other keys (usually by pressing shift and the other button simultaneously).As an initialism if is
interactive fiction.shift
English
(wikipedia shift)Verb
(en verb)The British Longitude Act Reconsidered, passage=But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.}}
T time, passage=The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them, which is then licensed to related businesses in high-tax countries, is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies. […] current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled.}}
- 'Tis very good to wash his hands and face often, to shift his clothes, to have fair linen about him, to be decently and comely attired […].
- As it were to ride day and night; andnot to have patience to shift me.
- Men in distress will look to themselves, and leave their companions to shift as well as they can.
- All those schoolmen, though they were exceeding witty, yet better teach all their followers to shift , than to resolve by their distinctions.
Noun
(en noun)- Just last week she bought a new shift at the market.
- No; without a gown, in a shift that was somewhat of the coarsest, and none of the cleanest, bedewed likewise with some odoriferous effluvia, the produce of the day's labour, with a pitchfork in her hand, Molly Seagrim approached.
- Some wear black shifts and flesh-coloured stockings; some with curly hair, dyed yellow, are dressed like little girls in short muslin frocks.
- We'll work three shifts a day till the job's done.
- My going to Oxford was not merely for shift of air.
- There was a shift in the political atmosphere.
citation
- Does it come with a stick-shift ?
- If you press shift -P, the preview display will change.
- Teams often use the shift against this lefty.
- If I get down, and do not break my limbs,
- I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:
- As good to die and go, as die and stay.
- And if the boy have not a woman's gift
- To rain a shower of commanded tears,
- An onion will do well for such a shift
- Reduced to pitiable shifts .
- I'll find a thousand shifts to get away.
- Little souls on little shifts rely.
Derived terms
* blueshift * day shift * graveyard shift * make shift * night shift * preshift * shift break * shiftwork, shift work * split shift * swing shift * stickshift * redshift * (French kissing) get the shiftif
English
(wikipedia if)Conjunction
(English Conjunctions)- If it rains, I will get wet .
- I'd prefer it if you took your shoes off.
- He was a great friend, if a little stingy at the bar.
- If A, then B, else C.
- I don't know if I want to go or not.
- Quoth Matthew, “”
- If' it’s the last thing I do / '''If''' it takes me from Tubilo to Timbuktu / '''If''' it’s the last thing I do / I’m gonna dodge every road block, speed trap, county cop / To get my hands on you / ' If it’s the last thing I do.
Usage notes
* Specifically a subordinating conjunction.Derived terms
* iff * if and only if * if clause * if only * as if * even if * if so beAlternative forms
* ifen * iffenNoun
(en noun)page 59,
- Sir Fran.'' Nay, but Chargy, if——— ¶ ''Miran.'' Nay, Gardy, no Ifs'''.——Have I refus'd three northern lords, two British peers, and half a score knights, to have put in your ' Ifs ?
page 176,
- Well might Bergman add, (in his Sciographia,''), “if the compari?on that has been made, &c. be ju?t.” The pre?ent writer makes no ''ifs about the matter, and has ?uperadded a little inaccuracy of his own, […]
citation
