Thanks very much for the explanation, I see now. We use "Or" as an opposite, as in "it's yes or no".Bobbotov wrote:Yes, but many people (English and non-English speaking) make the mistake of using "or" for a continuation of the negative. It makes the sentence ambiguous. If I say "you cannot go outside or drive your car," its meaning seems to indicate you can neither go outside nor drive your car. You however apparently mean you cannot go outside BUT you can drive your car.AngularMomentum wrote:Well my bad. In Dutch grammar this would make perfect sense. If I throw that sentence in Babelfish, I get a comprehensable result. Shouldn't I use Nor or Neither to state otherwise? As in "No. Nor load multiple instances"?
As a former Japanese translator these things come up a lot in languages. For example, in Japanese "yes" can mean "no." If I ask a negative question (i.e. "Do you not want to go outside?" the answer "yes" in Japanese means that you do not want to go outside. In English, you would typically say, "no" (meaning you do not want to go outside). Double negatives are worse (i.e. Didn't you want to not go outside?) The meaning is that at some point you intended to not go outside but changed your mind.
Anyhow, thanks again!