And, as the case may be, or

Just when you thought an expression couldn't get any worse than the lilly-livered and/or, the good people of the European Commission's crack drafting squad say HOLD MY BEER. It might not even make idiomatic, let alone legal, sense, but it appears 33 times in the AIFMD implementing regulations:

Behold: a novel, frightful, way of articulating the already gruesome expression “and/or”:

Take out the virgule (the slash, “/” that unnecessary character) and replace it with “as the case may be”:

“and, as the case may be, or”.

This is black-belt stuff, gang: Nested flannel. A flannelette phase, (one already displaying a keening want of ontological certainty) embedded in another flannelette phrase that also displays profound ontological uncertainty.

Breath taken. There’s a portal to the fourth dimension right there. An information superhighway direct to the boredom heat-death of the universe.

See also

• And/or
• Virgule
• As the case may be

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