The subtle point in that sentence might be "provider OR an owner", as opposed to "provider AND an owner".
Much to the chagrin of the computer scientists who think it’s some sort of robust formal specification for civil society.
Does this specific context allow for interchanging?
While this: "Wanted: dead or alive"
could be interpreted as: "We haven't decided yet what we actually want, if it's dead, or alive, but it's one of those".
Then it can be good to give them (the police) a call and ask if they have decided yet, before you go looking for the wanted person
Law is actually code, just written in a language that is full of UB and you need to have if run on the system to know exactly what it does, the system being the hierarchy of jurisdictions.
Which is why legalese exists. To try to limit undefined behavior by being extremely verbose to cut out any loopholes.
Like...imagine a kid jumping on their bed. Mom says "Stop jumping on the bed!" and the kids stops. Comes back to the kid's room later, kid is jumping on the bed again, tells the kid to stop. Kid says "I'm not jumping, I'm hopping!" and goes into a diatribe about the difference between jumping and hopping, mom says to stop hopping and leaves. Goes back again later, kid is STILL jumping on the bed, and mom is angry! "You said no jumping or hopping, I'm not doing either, I'm bouncing!"
Eventually the mom has to say something like "Do not jump, hop, bounce, spring, leap, or otherwise propel yourself upwards or laterally from the bed, mattress, or any other part of furniture intended for sleeping".
And then it goes on even further, because she did not say, that the kid must never "propel themselves upwards or laterally from the bed", and only stopped that action in that moment ...
[edit: boo it was Maine! Happily "Oxford comma lawsuit" is sufficient search term: https://www.npr.org/2017/03/23/521274657/the-10-million-laws...]
I’ve got some feedback about it at work, so now I genuinely try to be a bit better about it. It is a bit easier for me to be mindful of it on HN, but, as evident by my comment history, I am still far from being consistently good about it.
It is still often a “stream of consciousness written down as I would speak it outloud”, but now I at least started doublechecking the punctuation (or lack of it) for any potential confusion it could create before hitting send.