what does “Up to and including” mean?

Can someone explain why this phrase is used? What does it mean? I know what it means, but why is it used? For example, my job sends out emails and a part says “Repeated occurrences may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination.” Reading this, it seems like using “up to” and “including” together is redundant. Reading it, it sounds like they are saying “you can be disciplined with different things as far as termination, including termination.” Reading that, it sounds stupid. Why not just say “you can be disciplined, including termination.” ?

‘Up to’ and ‘up to and including’ mean the same thing, but some people are confused by ‘up to’.
For instance, something may be available ‘up to December 31’, but some people are confused whether or not ‘December 31’ is included in that. (It is.) However, to avoid that confusion, they tag on ‘and including’.

what does “Up to and including” mean?
Up to and including means you have a choice of priorities among which you may make a selection, from A to Z, Z being the most important and critical of all the choices, a choice, if made, in some cases makes the list of options mute.
This, for example, is the case with, Up to and including your employment; where a number of disciplinary options may be offered as available saves (by the union, for example) to hang on to the job (a change of shifts, a new assembly area, a relocation . . . ).
Another example: “Your building is unsafe in its present state for occupation by employees. You will make the listed changes or you will be subject to the following fines and legal actions up to and including demolition of your building if you fail to act;
Another good example is Hostess Twinkies. Hostess offered striking workers any number of options to stay on the job. The bakery unions failed to budge from their positions. Hostess tried every trick in the book. They had bills to pay. One might say that to keep their brand names viable, Hostess did everything they could think of, up to and including bankruptcy, which, as mentioned earlier, made the other choices offered mute, and 1500 employees were let go.

The phrase is only useful in matters of ordered sequence or a range of dates: “We will be covering all chapters to date, up to and including Ch. 11” – or – “Enrollment is open up to and including Jan 22.”. For other things, as is commonly found in company work policies, it offers no additional clarity: “Repeated occurrences may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination”. There’s no specific sequence for disciplinary action, so “up to termination” and “including termination” end up being the same thing. It’s much simpler and more effective to say, “Repeated occurrences may result in disciplinary action, including possible termination.”

1) “Up to but not including” is a valid phrase. Therefore “Up to and including” is not redundant.
2) There is rhetorical value in phrasing somthing in a particular way, even if it’s more wordy or pseudo-redundant. The more concise phrase does not always have the same impact.

Further occurrences will result in further disciplinary action up to suspension and including termination. May be what your employer had intended. That is, options for disciplinary actions go all the way up to suspension but could also include (result in) termination. I agree it loses meaning if just used as one phrase in the example you provide. But the example given about a date…up to and including February 23rd…is a good use it seems.

Answer 6

Up To Mean

Answer 7

You’re right…same meaning. Blame it on the writing style of the author(s). It may have been the decision of a rules writing committee wanting to avoid any loopholes.

use context clues

Answer Prime

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