Well as expected my previous writing rant did NOT (sadly) "automagically" fix the world :(
However, I have been able to encourage others to see the light.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Copyedit#Copyedit_Tag_needs_copy_editing
Wikipedia's CopyEdit tag used to display this text: "This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling."
So I encouraged them to change it:
" 'and/or' isn't really valid so it's kind of funny to see it in a statement regarding copy editing. Simply using "or" sufficiently indicates that any combination of grammar, style, cohesion, tone, and spelling need to be addressed. Either that or it should be changed to "and/exclusive or" but even that is implied by a simple "or" while avoiding the awkwardness of reading "and/exclusive or".
Wikipedia even has an entry about "and/or" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And/or
This page also provides a quick synopsis regarding why and/or shouldn't be written http://www.geocities.com/thorin.geo/and_or_invalid.html"
(That geocities URL is basically a static recreation of what I had previously blog'd)
Amazingly without further discussion or debate they saw the all was good in the suggestion and agreed to the change:
"Agreed. I've made the change you suggested."
Hurray! for logical minds.
However, I have been able to encourage others to see the light.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Copyedit#Copyedit_Tag_needs_copy_editing
Wikipedia's CopyEdit tag used to display this text: "This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling."
So I encouraged them to change it:
" 'and/or' isn't really valid so it's kind of funny to see it in a statement regarding copy editing. Simply using "or" sufficiently indicates that any combination of grammar, style, cohesion, tone, and spelling need to be addressed. Either that or it should be changed to "and/exclusive or" but even that is implied by a simple "or" while avoiding the awkwardness of reading "and/exclusive or".
Wikipedia even has an entry about "and/or" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And/or
This page also provides a quick synopsis regarding why and/or shouldn't be written http://www.geocities.com/thorin.geo/and_or_invalid.html"
(That geocities URL is basically a static recreation of what I had previously blog'd)
Amazingly without further discussion or debate they saw the all was good in the suggestion and agreed to the change:
"Agreed. I've made the change you suggested."
Hurray! for logical minds.
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