this is famous funnel theorem by speranza
On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 at 1:19 AM, Redacted sender jlsperanza for DMARC <
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-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sun, Dec 18, 2016 6:47 pm
Subject: [lit-ideas] Zsa Zsa is gone
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38360302#";
RP
It may do to review her implicatures -- or 'quotations,' as Grice
sometimes call them. As with Y. Berra, one-liners are ripe for implicatural
analysis. Here below are some by Gabor.
Why is an onliner ripe for implicatural analysis?
McEvoy might want a falsifiable answer.
An onliner is ripe for implicatural analysis if (and only if) it can be
_proved_ (alla Goedel) that there is an implicature being 'invited' (to be
inferred by the addressee of the utterance) by virtue of a violation of a
conversational maxim (within the cooperative principle), only when this
violation is 'blatant', i.e. a "flout", and intended to be recognized as
such.
(Popper denied falsifiable status to 'implicature').
So let's now consider some of Gabor's utterances, with a view of
identifying the implicature behind each, and how it arises.
i. I call everyone 'darling' because I can't remember their names.
-- This one seems a bit silly, but the implicature is that 'darling' is
perhaps overused. The use of 'because' implicates that this might be an
answer to an insidious and naïve question by a journalist, say.
ii. I never hated a man enough to give him diamonds back.
-- this is a paradoxical use of 'hate' but Zsa Zsa makes it, via
implicature, sensible! The implicature is quantifiable alla Altham, via the
use of 'enough'.
iii. I don't take gifts from perfect strangers -- but then, nobody is
perfect.
This implicature is slightly different, in that it is Chomskyian. The
scope of 'perfect' becomes, via a violation of the maxim, "avoid
ambiguity", the utterer of (iii), i.e. Zsa Zsa herself. By algebraic
reasoning, if the standard collocation of 'perfect' applies to 'stranger,'
then there is the final implicature that she does take gifts from
EVERYBODY. (Geary says that explaining Berra's jokes KILLS them, but Zsa
Zsa might be different ("than Berra", or 'from Berra,' as I prefer)
iv. I don't remember anyone's name. How do you think the 'dahling' thing
got started?
-- This is of course a variation on (i) -- (As with Dorothy Parker, or
indeed Berra, there are apocryphal and non-apocryphal variants, some due to
what Zsa Zsa called her 'ghost writers'. This one raises the deep
philosophical Kripkean question: why do people have personal names -- and
are not just called 'dahlings' (which incidentally, is gender-neutral)?
v. I like a mannish man: a man who knows how to talk to and treat a woman
-- not just a man with muscles.
-- The implicature here might be Hungarian in origin. "Mannish man" seems
analytic in English, but perhaps not in Hungarian. Cfr. womanish woman.
("woman" is etymologically 'wife-man,' so there may be implicatural
problems there).
vi. I want a man that's kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of
a millionaire?
Like (iii), here the implicature is Chomskyian, and ultimately syntactic
in nature. The utterance violates the cooperative principle and the
maxim 'be orderly', inter alia. "Man," in the object of the first sentence
within the utterance of (vi), has notably broad scope. In the question that
follows, however 'millionaire' comes out, as Grice would say, of the Zsa
Zsa blue.
McEvoy might revise if Gabor's utterances (never mind her witty
implicatures) are also falsifiable by Popperian criteria -- or whether they
illustrate the 'show' emphasis in Witters's underlying philosophy of
'logical grammar'.
And so on.
Cheers
Speranza