From today's Quinion's World Wide Words ((c) Michael Quinion
http://www.worldwidewords.org).
He quotes from a reader:
"I recently came across a wonderful word in my grandmother’s letters and things
from the 1930s or so. It is umphidilious (though I’m not positive on the
spelling) and apparently means wonderful or awesome or amazing. She lived in
Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and her heritage is mainly Dutch I believe. My dad
remembers her and others using this word (and its short form umfy) quite
frequently. I did a web search for this word but could find nothing."
Below a Popperian vs. a (right) Griceian analysis.
*****
(A) For Popper, 'umphidilious' belongs in W3. Whether it is a concept or not,
it is _not_ Popper's problem. The reader's grandmother did use "umphidilious"
(abbreviated to "umfy") so we have to assume it represents a concept for her.
And that concept is now part of what Popper calls 'objective knowledge' and
comes out in sentences, to use the one Popper learned from Tarski:
i. Snow is white.
ii. Snow is umphidilious.
(B) For Grice, the reader's grandmother surely meant something.
iii. By uttering "Snow is umphidillious," the utterer U means that the
addressee A will believe that U believes that snow is uphidillious.
On top, given the nature of conversational maxims, (ii) should well be -- "do
not be more informative than is required" -- shortened to:
iv. Snow is umfy.
The fact that the 'ph' (in the full form 'umphidillious') becomes an 'f' in the
shortened form ('umfy') also means, but means-n now, naturally, via entailment)
that the reader's grandmother knew Greek, because "ph" is pronounced /f/. There
is possibly an implicature to the effect that the word was used by Cicero --
since he loved to pepper his prose with Graecicisms, as he called them. Let's
go back to the body of the reader's letter to Quinion:
"I recently came across a wonderful word in my grandmother’s letters and
things from the 1930s or so."
This fits well with the Grice explanation, because, by the 1930s or so, Grice
had already won the scholarship at 'The House' (he was a Midlands scholarship
boy, as the snobs in the city of the dreaming spires called him).
The reader goes on:
"It is umphidilious (though I’m not positive on the spelling)"
The implicature reminds one of Grice:
v. Warnock: He has beautiful handwriting [of a tutee, at collections].
Grice: But don't despair. While he is hopeless at philosophy NOW, he MIGHT
learn. Look at Aristotle!
The reader goes on:
"and apparently means wonderful or awesome or amazing."
This WOULD seem to fit a Popperian explantion: inference to the best
explanation -- cfr. Mary Poppins:
vi. That's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Or Geary's
vii. That's brillig!
Note however that the reader fails to distinguish alla Grice what the
expression MEANS from what her grandmother means. The Griceian paraphrase would
be:
iii. By uttering "Snow is umphidillious," the utterer U means that the
addressee A will believe that U believes that snow is uphidillious.
For an _expression_ to acquire meaning we need (after Peacocke, in the
Evans/McDowell collection) a whole population using the word -- ascriptions of
expression meaning quantify over populations. Grice DOES allow for expression
idiosyncratic meaning, but that's Grice (he was idiosyncratic -- but in his
seminal 1948 'Meaning' he does make a point that he rather stick with what an
utterer means rather than the more complex, abstract, and less philosophical
question, as to what an _expression_ means. Can an 'expression' mean? We use
'mean' mainly as applied to people, Grice's anthropomorphic approach goes.
"Mean" comes from 'mind', and while an utterer has a mind, it's less clear than
an expression does. So 'mean,' as applied to an expression, is "totally" (as
Taylor Swift says) derivative.
If the reader's hypothesis is right:
ii. Snow is umphidillious.
would come out, via substitution, as:
viii. Snow is awesome.
ix. Snow is amazing.
The reader goes on:
"She lived in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and her heritage is mainly Dutch I
believe."
Geary would ask me to check the weather conditions there. It might well be that
in Rhodesia snow _is_ or should be defined as umphidillious (awesome, amazing).
The reader concludes her letter:
"My dad remembers her and others using this word (and its short form umfy)
quite frequently. I did a web search for this word but could find nothing."
The dad's recollections indicate that talking of expression meaning here might
make sense, because it was not just the man's mother who used 'umphidillious'
but "others", and cared to shorten the expression. Grice once said:
x. That's Dutch to me.
And it might well be. In any case, it brings us to the whole topic of
Umphidillious Disimplicatures.
For Grice, an implicature is when you mean more than you say. A disimplicature
is when you mean LESS than you say. Since we are not clear what the reader's
grandmother means, this might be classed as a disimplicature. Or not, of course.
******
Cheers,
Speranza
