&gt; `egrep &#x27;PATTERN|PATTERN&#x27;` instead of `grep PATTERN | grep PATTERN`<p>Oops? Ironically (assuming two distinct values of PATTERN) I think you just answered your own question. (They are different: first is disjunction of patterns, second is conjunction).<p>Your point has merit for scripts (performance) but for data exploration at the prompt it&#x27;s almost always irrelevant: the simplicity of pipe composition outweighs anything else.