The trouble is that English 'or' tends to lean toward exclusive 'or' in connotation. If it were the 'or' of logic, then you could just say 'or' for "and/or" and be done.
"Or" pulls double duty. Evidently, if you asked my college math professor "Would you like coffee or tea?", his respose would be "Yes, I would."
So if you're talking about a decision between a number of alternatives, then that is exclusive by understanding, I agree. But when you're talking about the connective between logical statements, it's not so clear to me. For example, consider "You should change the oil in your car every three months or three thousand miles." One would not conclude "I don't need to change my oil because it has been a year and eight thousand miles since the last time I changed it."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
So if you're talking about a decision between a number of alternatives, then that is exclusive by understanding, I agree. But when you're talking about the connective between logical statements, it's not so clear to me. For example, consider "You should change the oil in your car every three months or three thousand miles." One would not conclude "I don't need to change my oil because it has been a year and eight thousand miles since the last time I changed it."
From:
no subject
Yes, I tend to be tediously predictable in this way, myself.