contract-law
How to replace “and/or” in sentences with multiple terms?
<p>When writing a legal document, a contract, what is the proper way to replace and/or in a list with more than two terms to remove ambiguity?</p>

<p>For example, if I just have two terms:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>deliver apples and/or oranges</p>
</blockquote>

<p>could be replaced with:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>deliver apples, oranges or both</p>
</blockquote>

<p>so the valid results are:</p>

<p>[ "apples", "oranges", "apples and oranges"]</p>

<p>Now, I would like to do the same for the following sentence:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>deliver apples, oranges and/or pears</p>
</blockquote>

<p>So the valid results are:</p>

<p>[ "apples", "oranges", "pears", "apples and oranges", "apples and pears", "oranges and pears", "apples, oranges and pears" ]</p>

<p>Since "or" means "or" and not "only one of the following", if you want to say that you as vendor shall deliver a specific number of fruits composed of any mixture which vendor shall choose of apples, oranges and pears, then you say that. On the other hand, if you want to say that buyer shall make a selection of said number of fruits choosing freely from apples, oranges or pears, then you say that. On the other hand, if the intent is that buyer shall receive N units of fruit, composed of N apples, N oranges or N pears at buyer's discretion, they you would say that (unless in fact you mean that <em>seller</em> determines what kind of fruits are sent). In other words, in the course of saying who makes the choice, you can use words other than "and" and "or" which indicate whether the fruit-selector has to pick only one out of N, or is the intention to offer any selection of Z fruits totalling N units. The chances for screwup, if you have 3 choices, are pretty good, and if there are 4 choices, it's almost guaranteed.</p>

<p>Depending on the exact context, I would say the following could work: </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>deliver apples, oranges, pears, and any combination thereof</p>
</blockquote>
