Read the help files of /help if then else
'|' means nothing, (unless it tells mIRC to go to a different line since you didn't include a second opening parentheses in the if statement) '||' means OR.
These is very basic, you will find this in pretty much any language.
Oh that's interesting. Sorry to bother Nillen would this be viable?
if ($nick == newbie) || ($nick isop #) {
DO THE THING
}