I have the following sentence: 'Having recently evaded a prison sentence and/or imminent death, Jim finds that the...' And basically, I am wondering what is the preferred way to articulate and/or. Should I restructure the sentence entirely and avoid using and-slash-or altogether. Thoughts welcome.
I would rewrite it. I've never been crazy about the 'having done so-and-so' construction anyway, and if you leave it as is, just 'or' would make more sense to me. If he suffered imminent death, he couldn't also serve a prison sentence.
The 'and' portion implying that if he did end up in jail, he would have been killed inside. But yeah, I'll reword it. I've come across this before in dialogue though as well and I'd be lest likely to change it there. Mainly because I even catch myself saying it here and there and I've wondered what the best way to write it would be.
