Re: "Conditioned on" or "conditioned by"

Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
genuflectarbor@xxxxxxxxx writes: 

I was speaking with a friend the other day and said something like,
"Our decision was conditioned by his decision."  He politely noted
that I should have said "conditioned on" rather than "conditioned
by."  A quick google search seems to suggest that both phrases are
common.  I assumed that this was just a stylistic difference until I
noticed that some people appear to have used both phrases at
different points in the same article.  This makes me wonder if there
is a subtle difference in meaning that I am just not noticing.  If
there is a difference, is "Our decision was conditioned *on* his
decision" better than "Our decision was conditioned *by* his
decision"?


They are very different for me.  "Our decision was conditioned on his
decision" means that we made a decision, but that decision was only to
be in force if he decided a certain way (or we had several options,
one for each of several decisions he might make).  A candidate's
decision to withdraw from a race might be conditioned on another
candidate deciding to enter, for example.

I think a better way would be to describe the decision as being conditional, dependent on ...

"Our decision was conditioned by his decision" means that ours was
influenced by his.  That is, we took his decision (which has already
been made) into account when we made ours and that would probably have
decided otherwise had his decision been different.


I don't like the expression, but that's just me.  I don't speak Business.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

.

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