Helm was referring to "The Lone Ranger":
"I know that Speranza will be hastening to tell me that The Lone Ranger never
killed anyone. He merely shot the guns out of their hands and tied them up for
the Sheriff; which is pretty much the sort of thing Daredevil likes to do.
Speranza might think that the Lone Ranger was from Texas, but not so, he first
appeared in Detroit in 1933 on radio station WXYZ."
This seems to minimise all the action at Bryant's Gap.
Matter of fact, lThe Lone Ranger" (call him "Paul Grice"?) was thus described
because he is the only survivor of a group of six Texas Rangers, and NOT --
this is a disimplicature -- because he seems to 'work' alone (he doesn't: he is
accompanied by his companion, or attendiing implicature, "Tonto" -- is that a
proper name alla Frege or a description, if not a definite one?)
So, "The Lone Ranger" would be what Grice in "Vacuous Names" (partially
reprinted in "Definite Descriptions", MIT) calls a "vacuous definite
description" (His example, "the winged horse," Pegasus.)
This poses an obvious, yet complex, implicature.
Although the Lone Ranger's SURNAME in the radio shows Helm refers to is given
as "Reid," his FIRST name (cfr. "Bellephoron") is oddly never specified in any
of the radio or television shows.
Various radio reference books, beginning with Radio's Golden Age (Eastern
Valley Press), give "the Lone Ranger"'s complete name as "John Reid."
His mother possibly referred to him as "Jack."
Some cite the anniversary radio programme in as the source of this vacuous
first name -- which is odd given that "The Lone Ranger"'s alleged proper name
("John") is *never* mentioned in that episode.
In the final chapter of the Republic "The Lone Ranger" film serial, "The Lone
Ranger" is revealed to be a Texas Ranger bearing the proper name of "Allen
King"!
In the second serial, "The Lone Ranger Rides Again" he identifies himself,
however, by the vacuous name "Bill Andrews" (possibly a relation to both Julie
Andrews and The Andrews Sisters).
"The Lone Ranger"'s vacuous Fregeian proper name is also thought NOT to have
been mentioned in contemporary Lone Ranger newspaper comics, comic books, and
tie-in premiums, though some have stated that the vacuous Fregeian proper name
"John Reid" is notably used in an illustration of the grave marker which
appears in a comic book version of the character's origin story or in a record
set.
The vacuous Fregeian proper name "John Reid" is used in a scene in the film
"The Legend of The Lone Ranger," in which the surviving Reid romantically digs
an extra grave for himself.
"The Lone [Texas] Ranger" also bears the vacuous Fregeian proper name "John
Reid" in "Dynamite Entertainment"'s licensed Lone Ranger comic book series and
in the Disney film The Lone Ranger (Disney thought that the Fregeian "John
Reid" was not 'catchy' enough).
The vacuous Fregeian proper name "Luke Hartman" (of all names!) was used in the
TV-movie/unsold series pilot.
Since "The Lone Ranger" besides delivering the villains to "The Sheriff,"
always uses perfect grammar and precise speech devoid of slang and
colloquialisms yet filled with implicature, I tend to call him "Paul Grice,"
one of the six surviving Texas Rangers (A posse of six members of the Texas
Ranger Division pursuing a band of outlaws led by Bartholomew "Butch" Cavendish
is betrayed by a civilian guide named Collins and is ambushed in a canyon named
Bryant's Gap -- and the rest is vacuous history). McEvoy, just to be different
attempts to prove dialytically that the Russellian definite description "The
Longe Ranger" hides the proper name of Sir Karl Raymond Popper (note that both
have selves and free wills -- "even if Popper is "less cartoonish.""
Cheers,
Speranza
REFERENCES
Frege, Sense and Reference
Russell, On denoting
Strawson, On referring
Russell, Mr Strawson on referring
Grice, Definite descriptions in Russell and in the vernacular
Grice, Name and descriptions, repr, in "Definite descriptions," MIT
