Combining "not" with "and" or "or" leads to ambiguity - there are no operator pr... | Hacker News

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praptak on July 20, 2012 | parent | context | favorite | on: I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar

Combining "not" with "and" or "or" leads to ambiguity - there are no operator precedence rules in spoken language. I remember a "eating and drinking forbidden in the lab" notice with "not (eat or drink) == not eat or not drink" scribbled underneath (in math notation).

einhverfr on July 20, 2012 [–]

Also notice comma placement, which makes the citizenship requirement very interesting to try to parse. Is there anyone alive today who qualifies?

excuse-me on July 20, 2012 | [–]

Which is why you should avoid commas in legal documents and especially patents

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