Should that be  cp .profile /tmp/My_DocVments   #no trailing slash Regards 
 Leslie
 Mr. Leslie Satenstein
Montréal Québec, Canada



 
      From: 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni@jidanni.org>
 To: 22584@debbugs.gnu.org 
 Sent: Sunday, February 7, 2016 11:19 AM
 Subject: bug#22584: cp could be more precise than "Not a directory"
   
$ cp .profile /tmp/My_DocVments/cp: cannot create regular file '/tmp/My_DocVments/': Not a directory

Well can't it be more precise:
No such directory nor file.