clients

Wow – now my spam is personalised!

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I mean, what is up with this type of spam?  Now it is personalised with the name of a non-existent relative?  I mean, they couldn’t find an Axelsen in Denmark, where the name is more common than Smith?  Seriously, these scammers need to start trying to be least a little convincing. 

Togbe Law Firm
No R.C. 5468-A
Guinkomè Rue Roi Dakodonou Carré Žo 48
01 B P 2202 Cotonou-Benin Republic


Dear Axelsen,

I am Barr. Leopold O. Togbe, the attorney at law to Late Mr. Peter Axelsen, a national of your country, who used to work as the Director of Products pétroliers (TOTAL BENIN) in Benin Republic West Africa Here in after, shall be referred to as my client.
On the 27th of May 2004, my client, His wife and their three Children were involved in a car accident Along Sagbama express-road. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their lives. Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy to locate any of my clients extended relatives this has also proved Unsuccessful.

After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track His last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his Family hence I contacted you. I have contacted you to assist in Repatriating the money and property left behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank here. These huge deposits were lodged particularly, with the “BANQUE ATLANTIQUE DU BENIN (BAB)” An affiliate of Commercial Bank of Africa where the Deceased had an account valued at about $12.5 million dollars.

The Bank has issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confiscated. Since I have been unsuccessful in Locating the relatives for over 5 years now I seek your consent To present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you have The same last name so that the proceeds of this account valued at $12.5 million dollars can be paid to you and then you and me can Share the money.50% to me and 50% to you I will procure all Necessary legal documents that can be used to back up any claim we may make. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us seeing this Deal through.

I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. And the way we are going to achieve this, is I will need the
following information from you,
Your Full Name and Address,
Your Age, Occupation and Position,
Your Telephone and Mobile for Communication Purpose.
For privacy reply to my private,
Email: officeleopoldtogbe@ymail.com

I await your reply ASAP.
Best Regards,
Barr.Leopold O.Togbe

Season’s greetings from Micheal Axelsen & applied insight pty ltd

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Click here for a full screen version of the eCard.

Just for you, I’ve created my very own Australian-themed Christmas card this year, complete with the Kingswood I had in 1992.  We’d gone on a trip to Northern New South Wales, mis-read a Refidex, and what can I say – apparently Kingswoods aren’t four-wheel drives, but I do like the photo.

applied insight pty ltd specialises in working with clients to deliver significant improvements in the governance, management and development of their business information and data.

applied insight pty ltd’s consulting services are all about using business information better –building good and useful databases, using social networking and online sharing tools for business results, and helping users create and retrieve documents and information more powerfully.

applied insight pty ltd increases the maturity of the client’s enterprise governance of information.

The third of three types of ambiguity: imaginary ambiguity

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Imaginary ambiguity occurs when a word with a fixed meaning seems to have a different one.  Imaginary ambiguity derives from the optional interpretation that the recipient of the communication places on the information received.  Two distinct types of ambiguity can be categorised as imaginary ambiguity:  emphatic and suggestive. 

Emphatic Ambiguity

The question of ambiguity deriving from accent, or emphasis in speaking, is an ancient one (Hamblin 1970).  When a phrasing is rendered in the written form, the verbal emphasis may only be crudely indicated.  Significant meaning and context is lost.  Rescher (1964) provides the following example of emphatic ambiguity: 

The intended meaning of the democratic credo "Men were created equal" can be altered by stressing the word "created" (implying "that’s how men started out, but they are no longer so"). 

The verbal emphasis creates an inference of meaning that is a legitimate interpretation of the phrasing.  That is, changes in intonation can yield different interpretations. 
In the case of an information request, emphatic ambiguity occurs in the example information request of "A report of our good clients".  Ambiguity can derive from placing different emphases on the words.  Depending on the context or on emphasis used, "good clients" could be legitimately interpreted to be clients that pay on time or clients that have the highest dollar-value sales.  Indeed, with an ironic emphasis on the word "good", this request could be interpreted as a list of our worst clients – those that do not pay.  The information necessary to resolve the ambiguity is often difficult to convey using only printed media. 

Suggestive Ambiguity

Despite the apparent clarity of the sentence in question, suggestive ambiguity creates diverse implications and innuendos that can produce different implications (Walton 1996).  Fischer (1970) provides an example: 

The First Mate of a ship docked in China returned drunk from shore leave, and was unable to write up the ship’s log.  The displeased Captain completed the log, adding, "The Mate was drunk all day".  The next day, the now-sober Mate challenged the Captain over the entry, as it would reflect poorly on him.  The Captain responded that the comment was true, and must stand.  Whereupon the mate added to that day’s log, "The Captain was sober all day".  In reply to the Captain’s challenge, the mate responded "the comment is true, and must stand" (derived from Trow 1905, pp 14-15). 

The phrase "The Captain was sober all day" contains suggestive ambiguity.  As a further example, the statement, "The President is now an honest man", is perfectly clear, and yet considerable innuendo exists.  The fact that the President’s current honesty is worthy of comment implies that the President was previously dishonest.  

Both phrases are perfectly clear, and, indeed, true.  However, considerable innuendo exists.  The fact that the Captain’s sobriety, or the President’s honesty, is singled out for special comment implies that such a state of affairs is unusual (Walton 1996).  The statements are suggestively ambiguous. 

In the case of an information request, an example of this ambiguity is, "A report of the clients of this accounting practice that have lodged taxation returns in the past five years in accordance with the requirements of the Australian Taxation Office".  The request for information is quite clear.  By definition, however, all taxation returns should be lodged in accordance with the Australian Taxation Office’s requirements.  The extra phrase introduces suggestive ambiguity into the information request by suggesting that the report will not consist of all taxation clients, because some clients may not have complied with the Tax Office’s requirements. 

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The second of three types of ambiguity: actual ambiguity

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Actual ambiguity refers to ambiguity that occurs in the act of speaking.  It arises when a word or phrase, without variation either in itself or in the way the word is put forward, has different meanings.  The statement does not contain adequate information to resolve the ambiguity, resulting in a number of legitimate interpretations.  Two distinct types of ambiguity are categorised as actual ambiguity:  pragmatic and extraneous. 

Pragmatic Ambiguity

Pragmatic ambiguity arises when the statement is not specific, and the context does not provide the information needed to clarify the statement.  Information is missing, and must be inferred.  An example of pragmatic ambiguity is the story of King Croesus and the Oracle of Delphi (adapted from Copi and Cohen 1990):

"King Croesus consulted the Oracle of Delphi before warring with Cyrus of Persia.  The Oracle replied that, "If Croesus went to war with Cyrus, he would destroy a mighty kingdom".  Delighted, Croesus attacked Persia, and Croesus’ army and kingdom were crushed.  Croesus complained bitterly to the Oracle’s priests, who replied that the Oracle had been entirely right.  By going to war with Persia, Croesus had destroyed a mighty kingdom – his own."

Pragmatic ambiguity arises when the statement is not specific, and the context does not provide the information needed to clarify the statement (Walton 1996).  The information necessary to clearly understand the message is omitted.  Due to the need to infer the missing information, pragmatically ambiguous statements have multiple possible interpretations (Walton 1996).  Croesus interpreted the Oracle’s statement as indicating his success in battle – the response he desired.  As noted by Hamblin (1970), Croesus’ logical response to the oracular reply would have been to immediately ask the Oracle, "Which kingdom?"  Further information is needed to resolve pragmatic ambiguity. 

In the case of an information request, pragmatic ambiguity exists in the request for "A report of all the clients for a department."  The ambiguity is that the request does not refer to a specific department.  The end user could legitimately prepare a report for any department.  Further information is needed to resolve this actual ambiguity in this case.

Extraneous Ambiguity

In contrast to pragmatic ambiguity, in which information necessary to clearly understand the message is omitted, extraneous ambiguity arises from an excess of information.  Clearer communication arises where the minimally sufficient words needed to convey the message of the statement are used (Fowler and Aaron 1998).  Where more words are used than necessary, or where unnecessary detail is provided in the communication that is not part of the message, ambiguity arises.  The excess detail obscures the essential message and contributes to different emphases or interpretations.

The use of passive voice, vacuous words, or the repetition of phrases with the same meaning all contribute to lack of clarity (Fowler and Aaron 1998).  The use of clichés and the over-use of figures of speech add volume to the statement, but add little or no meaning.  Pretentious and indirect writing also adds to the bulk of the statement, but without adding meaning.  Fowler and Aaron (1998) provide the following comparative example:

  • Pretentious:    To perpetuate our endeavour of providing funds for our elderly citizens as we do at the present moment, we will face the exigency of enhanced contributions from all our citizens.
  • Revised:    We cannot continue to fund Social Security and Medicare for the elderly unless we raise taxes. 

The extra volume contributes to vagueness in the first statement, and adds to the multiplicity of legitimate interpretations of the statement.  The first statement exhibits extraneous ambiguity.  The second statement communicates forcefully and concisely. 

An example of extraneous ambiguity in an information request is "A report of all clients (and their names and addresses only) for the Tax and Business Services department.  Some of those clients are our biggest earners, you know".  The last sentence is extraneous, and contains detail that is redundant, uninformative, or misleading relative to the fundamental message.  In information theoretic terms, extraneous ambiguity is "noise" in the communication (Axley 1984; Eisenberg and Phillips 1991; Severin and Tankard 1997). 

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The first of three types of ambiguity: potential ambiguity

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Again, this is lifted from my thesis which looks unlikely to ever see the light of day unless I take it off the shelves in BEL library at UQ.

Potential ambiguity arises when a term or a sentence is ambiguous in and of itself, for example, before its use in the context of a sentence or paragraph.  Three types of ambiguity are categorised as potential ambiguity:  lexical, syntactical, and inflective. 

Lexical Ambiguity

Lexical ambiguity is the most commonly known form of ambiguity (Reilly 1991; Walton 1996).  It occurs when words have more than one meaning as commonly defined and understood.  Considerable potential ambiguity arises when a word with various meanings is used in a statement of information request.  For example, "bank" may variously mean the "bank" of a river (noun), to "bank" as related to aeroplane or a roller-coaster (verb), a savings "bank" (noun), to "bank" money (verb), or a "bank" of computer terminals (noun) (Turner 1987).  Lexical ambiguity is often reduced or mitigated by the context of the sentence. 

In the case of an information request, lexical ambiguity exists in the statement "A report of our clients for our marketing brochure mail-out".  The word "report" may have several meanings, independent of its context.  A gunshot report may echo across the hillside.  A student can report to the lecturer.  A heavy report can be dropped on the foot.  Although the context may make the meaning clear, the lexical ambiguity contributes to the overall ambiguity of the statement and increases cognitive effort. 

Syntactical Ambiguity

Syntactical ambiguity is a structural or grammatical ambiguity of a whole sentence that occurs in a sub-part of a sentence (Reilly 1991; Walton 1996).  Syntactical ambiguity is a grammatical construct, and results from the difficulty of applying universal grammatical laws to sentence structure.  An example of syntactical ambiguity is "Bob hit the man with the stick".  This phrasing is unclear as to whether a man was hit with a stick, or whether a man with a stick was struck by Bob.  The context can substantially reduce syntactical ambiguity.  For example, knowing that either Bob, or the man, but not both, had a stick resolves the syntactical ambiguity. 

Comparing the phrase "Bob hit the man with the stick" to the analogous "Bob hit the man with the scar" provides some insights.  As a scar is little suited to physical, violent use, the latter formulation clearly conveys that the man with the scar was struck by Bob (Kooij 1971).

In the case of an information request, syntactical ambiguity exists in the request "A report of poor-paying clients and client managers.  Determine their effect on our profitability for the last twelve months."  The request is syntactically ambiguous because the end user can interpret "their" to mean the poor paying clients, the client managers, or both.  Although the context may reduce or negate the ambiguity, syntactically the request is ambiguous.

Inflective Ambiguity

As Walton (1996) notes, inflective ambiguity is a composite ambiguity, containing elements of both lexical and syntactical ambiguity.  Like syntactical ambiguity, inflective ambiguity is grammatical in nature.  Inflection arises where a word is used more than once in a sentence or paragraph, but with different meanings each time (Walton 1996).  An example of inflective ambiguity is to use the word "scheme" with two different meanings in the fallacious argument, "Bob has devised a scheme to save costs by recycling paper.  Therefore, Bob is a schemer, and should not be trusted" (Ryle 1971; Walton 1996).  

In the case of an information request, inflective ambiguity exists in the example, "A report showing the product of our marketing campaign for our accounting software product".  Ambiguity derives from using the word "product" in two different senses in the one statement (Walton 1996; Fowler and Aaron 1998). 

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