The lazy and superfluous "and/or"

In My Humble Opinion
21

I think a Mod should change the thread title to

The lazy and/or superfluous “and/or”.

22

I have no problem with ‘and/or’.

It’s when people use the phrase ‘if and when’ about a future event. Either something may happen (if) or will happen (when). Unless I’m missing something.

23

I think the thing with ‘if and when’ is that, should the ‘if’ become a definite ‘yes’, then there will be a ‘when’.

24

Then at the time of writing, only an ‘if’ should be necessary as far as I can tell. Maybe the (IMO) unnecessary ‘when’ is there to suggest an increased likelihood.

25

It seems to that in “If and when A, then B”, then “when” is there to tell you that that’s the moment in time when B will occur: when A occurs. (And the “if”, of course, accounts for the possibility that A may not occur by making this explicitly conditional on A occurring)

26

I have actually met a person who used the phrase “or/and/or.” Seems like a bit of overkill.

27

I’m with the OP in my dislike of ‘and/or.’ My boss, however, loves the phrase and recently used it 16 times in one 3-page report. I recently asked if an ‘or both’ statement she made wasn’t redundant with the ‘and/or’ used earlier in the sentence. Oh no…no redundancy. ‘And/or’ followed later by ‘both’ conveyed exactly what she wanted.

Feel free to let me know I’m a rube, but the (2) bosses’ frequent use of ‘and/or’, ‘centerized’, and ‘reviewal’ makes me think at least one of us has a few misconceptions about (American) business English.