[lit-ideas] Re: today's language manglement

In a message dated 5/20/2009 1:40:47 P.M.  Eastern Daylight Time, 
pastone@xxxxxxxxx writes:
I am hearing an increasing  number of "I don't disagree"s from .... Is this 
a recent
yuchmentification,  or have I just not noticed it before?  

Further to E. Yost's comment, there's I think the extra:
 
   "I don't necessarily disagree"
 
---- google.com gives 50,000 hits for that.
 
The Acronym is IDD for Stone's 'phrase'.
 
There are 263,000 hits for "I don't necessarily agree"
 
First use of the acronym one should find out.
 
There is a blog that analyses IDD (the blog's entry is called "I don't  
disagree")
 
It advises:
 
>If you hear others say IDD repeatedly, when it is said to you, ask the  
person, "Does that >mean you agree with me?" I think you will discover it  
means something much different than, >"I agree."

In logical form: there is no way "~~p" (which is the logical form of "IDD") 
 cannot _but_ mean, "p". 
 
One way out is that the speaker is using some higher-order logic:
 
"I don't disagree with what you've _said_, I disagree with your _saying_  
it"
 
Cfr.
 
"Prince Charles does _not_ own Sandringham: he owns Sandringham and the  
Duchy of Cornwall".

There, the 'not' is not _rejecting_ a proposition, but the utterer's  
breach of maximal informativeness: "It is not complete to say that the Prince  
owns Sandringham when he owns a duchy in Cornwall, too".
 
Cheers,
 
JL Speranza
   Buenos Aires, Argentina
 
 
 
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