[lit-ideas] "Have You Stopped Beating Your Husband?"

In a message dated 6/22/2009 6:26:00 P.M.  Eastern Daylight Time, 
Jlsperanza writes:
In a message dated 6/22/2009  6:21:08 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
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?". 
----  

Grice loved trick questions, as that per the title.

I found out that the earliest equivalent in Latin logic was:
 
   Tu no cessas edere ferrum
 
You cease to eat iron.
 
-----
 
Grice dedicates 65 pages of his "Causal Theory of Perception" -- now online 
 in S. Bayne's history-of-analytic-philosophy website -- to the trick  
question.
 
For him, the implicature holds in the negative, not in the  affirmative:
 
    No, I have not stopped because I never started.
    Yes, I have stopped -- and I feel relieved about that  (<---- for 
scenarios of the hubby-beating wife).
 
I had forgotten that Stubbs (who also mentions the "Jeopardy" Henry-VIII's  
number of wives, also mentions the leap year.
 
How many balls (at least) must a bat have?
 
Similarly, for the question,
 
   "Where is your wife?"
   "In the dining room or in the kitchen"
 
-- the implicature is cancellable for houses with a passage that connects  
both, and when the wife is lying in between.
 
 
Cheers,
 
J. L.
**************Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the 
grill. (http://food.aol.com/grilling?ncid=emlcntusfood00000004)
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