[lit-ideas] Re: Grice on Trouser Implicatures
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:06:38 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 2/14/2013 2:39:50 A.M. UTC-02, rpaul@xxxxxxxx quotes
"To wear the pants "be the dominant member of a household" is
first attested 1931."
and previously from Austin,
"...'real' is what we may call a trouser-word. It is usually thought,
and I dare say usually rightly thought, that what one might call the
affirmative use of a term is basic—that, to understand 'x,' we need to
know what it is to be x, or to be an x, and that knowing this apprises
us of what it is not to be x, not to be an x. But with 'real' (as we
briefly noted earlier) it is the negative use that wears the trousers."
Thanks.
Note (not that anyone denies this) that Austin refers to this rather
abstract thing ("the negative use") rather than anything concrete as "the word"
as being the thing that "wears the trousers" (or pants).
For the record, one of the Griceian references comes from his "Paul Carus
Lectures" (Conception of Value"), where he is discussing the real Mackie's
ethical doctrines, and Mackie's take on 'objectivism' and non-objectivism.
It is the latter term which, despite its negative garb, Grice refers to as
"what used to be called in Oxford (with typical artless sexism) the
"trouser-word"".
-----
1931. "To wear the pants "be the dominant member of a household" is
first attested 1931."
---- one should find out when Austin first conceived of this notion, then
-- cfr. 'wear the trousers'.
Note that the implicature, as it were, of Grice generalising, typically,
"Austinian" to mean "Oxonian", is that
this or that is not merely "what used to be called BY AUSTIN (with typical
artless sexism) the "trouser-word", but what "used to be called IN OXFORD".
One pet theory: Austin popularised this in his "Saturday Mornings"
(meetings of the Play Group) and even if he is criticising Warnock and other
members of the Play Group for an otiose use of 'real' (if 'otiose' is not
otiose
here), his 'artless sexism' typically became widespread. Or something.
Cheers,
Speranza
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