Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
I admit the Morgan Freemark was amusing, prompting the reader to hear the text in Morgan Freeman's voice.
The Andorperspand, combining the ampersand, does illustrate a clumsiness of how English handles logic. "Or" can be vague because it can mean picking ONLY one or it can mean one or both. Similarly "if" can be vague, because it's not always clear if it means if or "if and only if." I've seen people write "iff" for "iff and only if," but the problem with that is how would you pronounce it?
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English is imprecise. I think that in general, English uses 'or' in the sense of 'exclusive-or', which is why an 'and/or' construction is required for the other meaning.
'If' generally does not mean 'if-and-only-if', which is why mathematicians often abbreviate the latter to iff (pronounced "if and only if") as it's a lot quicker to write!