Template:Without limitation and ejusdem generis

Without limitation and ejusdem generis

Recently spotted: specifically carving out ejusdem generis as an articulation of the without limitation trope:

“including (without limitation or application of the ejusdem generis rule) data (including [ ... and here follows a long and tedious catalogue of the various forms that data can take concluding with cat memes, GIFs and any and all other information, howsoever described], inasmuch and insofar as it relates to the Discloser.”

This, of all places, in that most saintedly useless of all agreements, a confidentiality agreement.

This, readers, is legal eaglery taken to an extraordinary, self-contradictory lengths. This is the legal eagle as farmer, cack-handedly counting her sheep. For what is the purpose of a laundry list of specifics in the first place, if not to somehow craft, contextualise or otherwise put some meaningful boundaries on a general expression which might otherwise have impossibly wide application? If you just want to capture all information, just say “all information”, and don’t trouble your reader with a laundry list which is patently redundant or the ejusdem generis carve-out.