0

I need help with distinguishing usages of 'or'. From what I know, the conjunction 'or' has two usages:

  1. two different objects: "coffee or juice", "me or my friend"
  2. 'object' or 'explanation of a preceding word or phrase': "coffee or my favorite drink"="coffee, namely, my favorite drink" So here 'or' is similar to 'namely' or 'which is...'

Then how can I distinguish them? I often have difficulties in which way 'or' is being used. For example, I encountered this sentence:

"They debated whether the evidence reflects a prolonged phase of warm, wet conditions or melting in frozen environment."

I thought this means "... a prolonged phase of warm, wet conditions, namely, melting in frozen environment." So I was thinking 'melting in frozen environment' is the explanation for and another expression of 'prolong phase of warm, wet conditions. But it wasn't. It was talking about two different theories. How can I distinguish these two usages?

Improve this question
9
  • Hi Polarjen, I think you have your answer unless you are confused by other vocabulary in your example. Are they two different things or the same thing following "debated"? If the meaning of those phrases is confusing, please include that and your research on those words.
    – livresque
    Commented Jul 29, 2023 at 6:01
  • @Shoe Isn't there any rule with punctuation too? Because I sometimes saw putting comma before or after 'or' when it's being used in the second way. Is it not grammatically correct but used that way just to distinguish?
    – petit beauté
    Commented Jul 29, 2023 at 7:24
  • @petit beauté. I had deleted my comment before yours appeared because I was going to write a proper answer which expanded on the comment and mentioned the use of 'whether...or' as an indicator of the 'alternative' version. I note however that the question has two close votes already, so I'll hang fire before wasting my time on an answer. That said, you are right about the use of commas, but this is not always the case in the 'namely' interpretation.
    – Shoe
    Commented Jul 29, 2023 at 7:32
  • @Shoe Thank you! By the way, I see there are no close votes. I'm new here so I don't know very well about the system. But as far as I know 2 close votes are when there are two down votes and it appears as -2. I'm only seeing 0. Are the close votes not seen to the writer of the post?
    – petit beauté
    Commented Jul 29, 2023 at 7:37
  • 1
    This is a duplicate question (on ELU), pb, answered at Ambiguity of "or": alternative entity or alternative term?, where there's a cracking example, with rulings. Essentially, though unresolvably ambiguous examples may be grammatical, this doesn't make them right. They violate the Gricean maxim of manner (sub-maxim 'avoid unresolvable or hard-to-resolve ambiguity'). The fault lies with the user, not the would-be interpreter. // Here, I'd say the sentence needs say 'resulting in' in any case.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 29, 2023 at 11:24

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

The use of or to indicate an alternative expression of the same concept is a source of ambiguity. This use of or is often preceded by a comma to indicate that what follows is a substitute word or phrase. Only context will disambiguate for you.

Improve this answer
2
  • +1 Also, the word "whether" is a clue that two options are coming, and "or" often conjoins them.
    – gotube ♦
    Commented Jul 29, 2023 at 22:00
  • @gotube That's actually really good too! It would have been much easier to recognize the which 'or' my example sentence was using. Thank you!
    – petit beauté
    Commented Jul 30, 2023 at 12:52

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .