I have recently been involved in managing a special issue in a scientific journal. The chief-editor was somehow appreciative of my work and now wants me to join the journal's board as a copyeditor. I am puzzled by this request since I have no example of an academic being involved in such a task. Usually, being an editor (see Why become a journal editor?) involves more content evaluation.

Would my academic career take advantage of such a duty?


Question: "Find ten apples and oranges" Do I find 10 or 20?
Answer: It's like someone saying they "have three brothers and sisters".
Is that a total of six siblings or three? Do they have two brothers and one sister, or two sisters and one brother?

As a result we can read the OP's sentence as


Find ten apples [and oranges] = 20 pieces of fruit (ten oranges being implied)
Find ten [apples and oranges] = 10: any combination of the two types of fruit.


Possible variations which would avoid this ambiguity:


  Find ten of each fruit: apples and oranges. (20)
  Find ten apples and ten oranges. (20)
  Find ten apples or ten oranges. (10)
  Find ten fruit which are apples and oranges. (10)