Re: and/or?

["Mark L. Levinson" <nosnivel -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il>]

Raj Machhan wrote:
> It would be a great 
> value addition to this thread if anybody could come up with a style 
> guide that favors that use of "and/or".

I'm not sure any addition to this thread has value
any more, but here goes:

 From _The Handbook of Good English_, by
Edward D. Johnson:

- quote -

and/or      a convenient and compact device--
it isn't really a word or even a conventional
compound-- but a graceless one.  It has a place
in legal, commercial, and technical writing, in
which precision and compactness are more important
than grace, but even in such writing it is often
unnecessarily used when _or_ alone would carry
the meaning.  Elsewhere it should be avoided,
even though avoiding it may require several
additional words.

- end quote -

In short, as Johnson says elsewhere in the
same book, "_And/or_ can be effectively used,
but too often it merely camouflages muddy
thinking."

------------------------------------------------
   Mark L. Levinson - nosnivel -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il
------------------------------------------------
Mark discourses to fellow Israeli techwriters in
The Why of Style, at http://www.elephant.org.il/
------------------------------------------------
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