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mike w reports that <<MSMOS says that I should avoid "and/or," except in
cases where doing so would make the sentence "cumbersome." (how's that for
subjective?!) Here is my sentence: "The PC Program is not intended for
telecommuting and/or working at home." Should I let this stand as is?>>
I tend to run hot and cold on "and/or". In general, I find it awkward, but
easily comprehensible and acceptable in informal situations. Although it's
possible to simply say "or" (since "or" does not logically exclude "and"),
that approach is sufficiently ambiguous to cause problems, and that suggests
a rewrite is generally in order. The usual rule of thumb is to replace "A
and/or B" with "A, B, or both". However, that gets cumbersome sometimes, as
Microsoft notes. (Give them credit: they're not always wrong with their
style advice. <G>)
In your case, it's probably not necessary to reword that way, since focusing
on the actual problem and communicating that to the reader offers a better
solution. The key concept seems to be one of two things: either the person
is working over a dial-up connection to the office and the software doesn't
permit this, or the worker must remain connected to the office computer
(e.g., to synchronize the work with a central database). If that's true, the
rewrite becomes (respectively) "... will not work properly over the phone"
or "cannot work in situations where you can't remain reliably connected to
the central database". Some similar rewording should get you close to the
solution you're seeking.
"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."--Goethe
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