[lit-ideas] The Importance of Being Only
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:04:07 EST
In a message dated 11/18/2010 4:00:41 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
People have been spreading bogus numbers around, suggesting that the
President's trip to Asia cost $200 million per day. Friedman corrects this
misapprehension, adding the following actual yardsticks: the war in
Afghanistan costs only about $190 million a day and Bill Clinton's trip to
Africa,
more than ten years ago, cost only "about $5.2 million a day."
-----
I think J. D. Atlas has written on this, from a Gricean perspective. He
argues that 'only' adds only to the IMPLICATURE. Never to the explicature:
"She is a whore"
"She is only a whore".
"only" does not _add_ to the *semantics* -- only the pragmatics.
Speranza
Swimming-Pool Library, etc.
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