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Using "and/or" may be inelegant or even dorky, but I have never met anyone
who didn't know what it meant. "or" does not imply "and" as well.
I don't really like "and/or" but it has the virtues of being generally
understood and shorter than the spelled-out explanations, such as "select a
or b, or any combination of a and b."
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Marylee Hendricks
Retek Information Systems
Technical Editor - Training
Phone: 612.630.5642 Fax: 612.630.5710
Email: marylee_hendricks -at- retek -dot- com
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-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Hart (by way of "Eric J. Ray" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)
[SMTP:ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 1998 1:54 PM
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject: Using and/or?
Kevin Feeman pondered the eternal question of whether 'tis proper to
use "And/Or" in documentation.
but rather the fact
that it can occasionally mislead. More than once, I've seen someone
ask "Which do you mean... and, or, or some unholy combination of
both?"
One common solution is to simply say "or", since this implicitly
includes the possibility of "and" as well.
