[lit-ideas] Re: Grice to the Max

When we ask "What age is X?", or say "X is y years", we surely mean to ask 
after, or state, their present _maximal_ age; not merely an age they may be 
said to have attained some time ago. This (implicature?) means that the "is" in 
such statements cannot reasonably be understood to refer to any past age they 
may have attained but only to their current maximal age. 

If JLS were to state on a sworn witness statement that he is twelve years old, 
neither his logic-chopping nor invocations of the Grice-meister  would save him 
from a charge of perjury.

There is an old trick question "How often are there 28 days in February?" to 
which the correct answer is supposed to be "always", because even in a Leap 
Year there are still at least 28 days. But the 'implicature' of such a question 
is surely that we read it as asking "How aften are there only 28 days, and no 
more or less, in February?". Given this, the trick in the question is surely a 
cheap one.

To say Joan Rivers's is sixty, fifty etc. is a similar cheap trick if the 
question is "What age is she?". If she "is 76" it follows that she has been all 
the ages that logically are prior to reaching that age; but it is highly 
misleading to suggest she therefore "is" all these ages, rather than "has been" 
all these ages where they denoted her maximal age at previous times.
 
D
Back in the garage
With my BS detector 
Going beserk





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