TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
> >>Using "and/or" may be inelegant or even dorky, but I have never met
> anyone
>
>
> I have a simple question about and/or. AND implys that you must do both.
> You do This And That. OR implies that you have a choice between two
> options. You can do this OR that. How can there be an option that requires
> you to do either of two options as well as only one or the other?
"and/or" is a short way of saying "either or both."
A short note: in every programming language that I have ever used or
investigated, an OR expression evaluates to TRUE if either one *or both*
of the conditions is true.
If you want an expression to evaluate to true if *only* one of the
conditions is true, you have to use or invent an entity called an
"exclusive OR," or XOR for short.
The programming and layman interpretations of "or" are very different --
and/or is a way of expressing the programming interpretation in layman
terms.