Watch out for "as well as"

Subject: Watch out for "as well as"
From: holland -at- CVAX -dot- IPFW -dot- INDIANA -dot- EDU
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1993 21:47:57 EST

Our Internet mail is catching up after a month of disastrous delays, so the
following may not be timely. But somebody responding to a query about
"and/or" recently suggested using "as well as"--an expression I always try
to avoid because of its inherent ambiguity:

"The program produces Word as well as WordPerfect files," for example,
will lead various readers to 2 different conclusions. In fact, it's
hard (though not impossible, lest flaming examples avalanche my way)
to come up with text in which "as well as" lacks ambiguity.

Thank you for shopping at Kmart.

Steve Hollander
holland -at- cvax -dot- ipfw -dot- indiana -dot- edu


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