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From: Chris Croughton <chris@keristor.net>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: Confidential
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 15:32:54 +0100
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On 23 May 2005 14:28:41 -0700, credoquaabsurdum
<credoquaabsurdum@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Thanks, Chris. That was important for me.
>
> "Eyes Only" is nowadays more or less restricted to the miliary and
> intelligence community in the States.
I don't know how much it is used in the UK military now, but my
impression is that it is military slang which made its way into public
speech for a while through films and TV programmes.
I had a letter through the post yesterday which said both "PRIVATE AND
CONFIDENTIAL" and "FOR THE ADDRESSEE'S EYES ONLY". I half expected it
to have been opened by the Post Office <g>...
On the subject of sending private material to public employees
(government, etc.), I'm told that the "nested envelope" trick sometimes
works. On the outer envelope put "For the attention of <name>", on the
next put that plus "PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL", on the next put "FOR
<name>'s EYES ONLY", etc. The rationale is that each person in the
chain will remove one envelope, a bit like the "pass the parcel game",
so the contents in the middle may actually get to the intended
recipient before all envelopes have been removed. I don't know whether
it works (it might make them more suspicious)...
Chris C
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