Nov 6, 2008 10:54
15 yrs ago
English term

Whose signature and who is the "latter"?

English Law/Patents Insurance
This is to certify that John an agent of Larry has stated in my very presence that the latter acknowledge himself to have affixed his signature to the attached document.

I am quite puzzled by this statement, anyone please help?
Thanks in advance!
Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:

Non-PRO (1): writeaway

When entering new questions, KudoZ askers are given an opportunity* to classify the difficulty of their questions as 'easy' or 'pro'. If you feel a question marked 'easy' should actually be marked 'pro', and if you have earned more than 20 KudoZ points, you can click the "Vote PRO" button to recommend that change.

How to tell the difference between "easy" and "pro" questions:

An easy question is one that any bilingual person would be able to answer correctly. (Or in the case of monolingual questions, an easy question is one that any native speaker of the language would be able to answer correctly.)

A pro question is anything else... in other words, any question that requires knowledge or skills that are specialized (even slightly).

Another way to think of the difficulty levels is this: an easy question is one that deals with everyday conversation. A pro question is anything else.

When deciding between easy and pro, err on the side of pro. Most questions will be pro.

* Note: non-member askers are not given the option of entering 'pro' questions; the only way for their questions to be classified as 'pro' is for a ProZ.com member or members to re-classify it.

Responses

+2
9 mins
Selected

Larry ... and Larry

My reading:

This is to certify that John an agent of Larry has stated in my very presence that the latter acknowledge himself to have affixed his signature to the attached document.
-->
... certify that John, who is Larry's agent, has stated in my (some else's) presence that the latter (Larry) confessed to having signed the attached document himself.

i.e. John stated that Larry signed the document
Note from asker:
Thank you so much!
Peer comment(s):

agree Els Spin
1 day 12 hrs
agree Caroline Moreno
7 days
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks a lot."
11 mins

Larry is the latter, and it is his signature

This is the grammatical logic ('the latter' refers to the second or final of two previously mentioned persons or items, and by convention relative pronouns refer to the most recently mentioned person or item.

However, the sentence is poorly worded (not natural English), so this may not be the *intended* meaning.
Note from asker:
Thanks for reply.
Something went wrong...
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search