English usage and grammar

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Cambridge English Dictionary
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Gilman's Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. This is a great and witty reference about usage, its history, and its controveries

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English needs a word for the inclusive or, and I'm down for committing robbery against one of our top victims. (infosec.pub)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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You know when something can be either "or" or "and?" You may also say it is "and" and or "or"; "or" and/or "and," if you will. That's the inclusive or!

The Latin "vel" is a word for the inclusive or. I also just learned that the logic symbol, ∨, is called "vel" and is used for something called "disjunction" as opposed to "exclusive disjunction (⊻)," which is simply the exclusive or, which is the regular or in English.

Apparently the legal term "vel non" uses this word to mean "or not," which means there's at least a chance of it making it out of the courtroom and into the common lingo like quid pro quo, de jure, and de facto, did.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Would you like pie, vel ice cream?

Infantry must be equipped with anti-tank guided missiles vel suicide drones if they are to stand a chance against enemy armoured vehicles.

To take Introduction to Set Theory, you must have taken Calculus 1 vel Linear Algebra 1.

That car has seen better days. Based on the sounds it's making, the entire engine needs cleaning -- vel maybe the carburettor is shot.

I like it! We could use it vel "xor" to specify exclusive or (although I'm not sure if "xor" should be pronounced zor, cksor, or ex-or).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

While pronouncing xor as 'ex-or' makes sense, since the x stands for ex-clusive, most words in English that start with x make the 'Z' sound. Xenophobe, xylophone, xanax. But once again, the regular 'or' in English is already exclusive, so there's no need to make a new word for it, but I admit it would be fun.