Hi Jerry,
Wolfgang Denk wrote:
In message 4836BA48.1010109@ge.com you wrote:
THIS MESSAGE AND ALL ATTACHED DOCUMENTS ARE EXCLUSIVELY INTENDED TO THE INDICATED RECIPIENTS AND ITS CONTENTS MAY BE CONFIDENTIAL. IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN TO ANYONE TO TAKE COGNIZANCE, USE, OR
> DIVULGE THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN. IF YOU MISTAKENLY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~...
Obviously the whole world is the "INDICATED RECIPIENTS" and thus it is OK to "TAKE COGNIZANCE" of his email. :-P
You are not a lawyer. You apply much too much common sense.
The text reads: "IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN TO *ANYONE* TO TAKE COGNIZANCE..."
In legal speak, "anyone" really means "anyone", including the "indicated recipients".
Ahh, you are right. You've out Englished my English. ;-) My English teacher in the 5th grade would harp on this: it should say "ANYONE ELSE" to prevent the internal conflict. So many native English speaking people like make this error that we've become like blind to it.
Probably I was not being explicit enough in my first complain, but exactly this blunt "ANYONE" really ticked my off in the first place. Even if the company decides not to drop the footer, they should change the wording to leave any sense in sending mails *at all*.
Cheers Detlev