s/or/and/ in "greater of X or Y" expressions

[dholbert]

(apologies for the pedantry)

The spec has a few instances of "...the greater of X or Y"

Strictly speaking, that should say "and", not "or", I think.

Mathematically speaking:

• "X and Y" represents a set of two values which we can perform a "give-me-the-greatest-value" operation on. *...whereas "X or Y" represents a single (indeterminate) value, and it doesn't really make sense to perform a give-me-the-greatest-value operation on that single indeterminate value.

Also, consistency-wise (and as a sanity-check on my instinct here): CSS specs do seem to say "the greatest of X and Y" (rather than "or"), when they use this sort of phrasing.

e.g.:

the greater of the number determined by the table-column elements and the number determined by the first row,

https://www.w3.org/TR/2011/PR-CSS2-20110412/tables.html

the greater of the resolved min-width, CAPMIN, and GRIDMIN.

https://www.w3.org/TR/css-tables-3/

the greater of the two applicable Membership fees (for "A" and "B").

https://www.w3.org/Consortium/membership-faq

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[yoavweiss]

@dholbert - can you join the WICG to appease the IPR bots?

[npm1]

This can probably also be marked as non-substantive though?

[yoavweiss]

Since this corrects the normative logic, I thought it might be considered "substantive", even if it's small changes that don't alter the original meaning.

[npm1]

I would say it's a grammatical correction, not a logical one. But in any case we can hold on merging it until the author joins WICG.

[dholbert]

@dholbert - can you join the WICG to appease the IPR bots?

Joined (at https://www.w3.org/community/wicg/join ). Let me know if there are other steps that I need to take to appease/re-trigger the bot.

[yoavweiss]

I think @tantek needs to approve you joining. You may also need to link your GH account with your W3C one.

[yoavweiss]

And the IPR bots give you their blessing 🎉

[dholbert]

Thanks, everyone!