About the phrase "one or more".
 

Hello everyone,

I would like to confirm that I understand the following sentence correctly.

"Can't play one or more songs in this playlist."

I understand that this sentence means you cannot play any songs (all songs) in the playlist.

Am I correct?

Thanks very much for your help.

That sentence doesn't really make sense in English. No one would say that. It is not a complete sentence, either.

However, as it is, it means there is at least one song on that playlist that someone cannot play. It doesn't mean that person cannot play all songs on the list.

Thank you very much for your help, MMM, and my appologies for the late replay. Now I'm clear. :) Thank you again!

Hi, I kind of disagree with that explanation. It seems that this is an error message of some electronic device. In this case it only means that the system does not know if you selected one or multiple tracks to play. Therefore it answers that it cannot play whatever you selected. So your selection contains at least one song which cannot be played, but it may also be possible that more than one song of your selection cannot be played.

That's a very plausible explanation, but I don't think an electrical item would use a contraction like that. Companies tend to want to be as clear as possible, and as proffesional in their language as possible, and so I can't see a computer or i-pad using a contraction such as "can't". It would be more likely to say "Can not play one or more items in the playlist". Even then, as MMM said, it's not a full sentence, most programmes would still use full sentences to make clear what programme it is that cannot play said items.

Apple sometimes uses "can't" in some of its Mac error messages, and although I don't have an iPad or iPod, I see no reason why they wouldn't there as well. I don't know if this message came from an Apple device, but if they're doing it, maybe other companies have followed suit.

To me it says that the program encountered a problem with reading a file or type of file, and that other such files in the list may have the same problem.

Update: this appears to be a Zune error message. Maybe the solution is here too (I didn't read it all), but since I just noticed that the original post was from May, I hope they've worked it out by now. :)

Microsoft does as well specifically the Zune in which the "Can't play one or more songs..." error is given.

Edit: lol sorry Gina you corrected it before I posted.