When anthropologists study interactions that occur among people, it is important to clarify who is the sender and who is the receiver of a message, and to distinguish between receivers who were meant to (were intended to) be the recipient of the message, and those who were not meant to be (for example, a bystander or eavesdropper.) With that in mind, a/anreceiver is the one for whom a message is intended; and a/an receiver is the one for whom a message was not intended, but received it anyway.