Well, for the record, the name of the reporter, as I say, is Boyle, as the
well-known scientist, seeing that we were discussing Weinberg's defense of
science against Popper's 'silly' criterion, as he (Weinberg) calls it. Daniel
Boyle writes in The Telegraph": "Judge says 'LOL' as he jails thug who boasted
on Facebook of avoiding prison."
It is not clear if this is saying-that, oratio obliqua. I think not. It seems
'oratio recta', but a title need not be precise about this ("Judge Ritchie
says: "LOL," as he..."). The caption to the pic, usually not due to reporters
theirselves [sic], goes: "Judge Norman Ritchie told [D. N.] that the sentence
had 'enlivened what was otherwise a dull day'."
Here we seem to have a case of saying-that, given that Boyle, well, uses
'that'. (vide Davidson on "Saying That"), but notably the 'that' does NOT
follow the phrase in question, "LOL. As McEvoy notes, Boyle starts his report
(I follow Geary in judging that the title of a poem is not part of the poem):
"A judge told a thug who boasted online of avoiding jail THAT [emphasis mine --
Speranza] he was "laughing out loud" as he sentenced him to prison." "To tell
someone that" is very different from "to say to someone that" (since the title
of the report uses 'say' -- Grice's obsession). There is a world of difference,
as William Blake would say. Here Boyle says plainly that Judge Ritchie told [D.
N.] THAT p." To say that p is different from telling your addressee that p.
Why? For various reasons. Some grammatical, surface logical form: if you need
to specify your addressee, 'say' takes "to". The Judge SAID to D. N. THAT p. In
general, Grice is concerned with the distinction:
I) TO SAY (not "to tell") vs. II) TO IMPLICATE (There is very little Grice says
on 'tell that...' or tell one's addressee that... In general, the use of
'tell', a verb of less philosophical import than 'say', seems to be implicating
that one is INFORMING -- unless 'tell' is followed by 'to': 'He told me to
water the garden' versus 'He told me that I had to water the garden'. Cfr. "He
said to me that I had to water the garden."
Boyle notes: "D. N. was given 150 hours' community service for a street attack
on a vulnerable man in Glasgow last year." It is ironic that the never
politically correct Marie Lloyd, a music-hall singer, once said that there no
vulnerable men in Glasgow. She was consistently attacked when she sang her
(admittedly) bawdy songs in Glasgow (vide Roy Hudd, "Music-Hall anecdotes").
Marie Lloyd was wrong. For Judge Ritchie, there is or was, last year, a
vulnerable man in Glasgow -- and D. N. attacked on him _in the street_ -- "a
street attack" is not a special type of attack -- do not multiply types beyond
necessity -- but an attack that happens on a street (+> of Glasgow). In fact,
the attack had tragical consequences for this vulnerable man. The opposite of
vulnerable is invulnerable -- but Superman ain't (cfr. kryptonite) nor Achilles
(his heel), but Boyle may be meaning something else. Boyle goes on to provide
the specifics of the case "[D. N.] had refused to carry out the unpaid work,
but was twice given another opportunity to fulfill his sentence without going
to jail." This echoes with Judge Lynch who told H. that he had been warned
"ninth" times. The use of correct numerals in judicial language is crucial,
especially when it comes to the specifics of the sentencing (vide McEvoy:
Judicial Language: Its Use and Misuse, ch. 8, section iii). Boyle goes on: "But
after hearing that [D. N.] had posted on Facebook "I'm out bro, easy", [Judge
Ritchie] jailed him for 9 months adding "As they say, LOL." ""I gave you two
chances. You didn't take the chances"". Boyle explains: "[Judge Ritchie] said
that he did not pass the sentence "out of anger", explaining: "In truth it [the
sentence] enlivened what was otherwise a dull day."" Implicature, "as they say,
a dull day":
xv. The sentence enlivened what was otherwise a, as they say, dull day.
The implicature is that it was a dull day for Judge Ritchie -- not necessarily
for me or for you, or D. N., as the case might be. Boyle continues: "Judge
Ritchie had previously ordered [D. N.], from Glasgow, to perform unpaid work
for assaulting 27-year-old [I.M.], but he did not turn up." We are getting onto
Hartian analysis here: "to order" is even different from "to tell" and from "to
say to someone that..." (It is disclosed, incidentally, the name of the
vulnerable one. And the attack is turned into an 'assault'. Boyle notes: "After
[D. N.] was given a second chance to comply at the High Court in Glasgow, [D.
N.] posted to his Facebook followers". Here Boyle reports the FB text: D. N.
says: "People wonder y this country is f----d?" -- This country can mean
Scotland, since Glasgow is in Scotland, or the UK. D. N. goes on: "A got a high
court conviction n they never sent me to jail. Instead gave me a community
order. ""Told them to stick it up ther pipe so got sent back to court n what do
they dae?" "The judge says 'Mr [D. N.] I would refer to you as an idiot'..n
then what does he dae? He geez me it again." "F--- c.s (community service) n
f--- probation am no dayn it simple!!! F--- the polis!!!"" -- The caption in
THE TELEGRAPH reads: "One of [D. N.] Facebook taunts that were raised with the
judge by probation officers." Boyle goes on to report: "On the morning of a
court appearance on June 22, [D. N.] posted a picture on Facebook of him
wearing a suit with the caption: "Away doon wae the suit on trying eh make a
good impression.Boyle comments: "Later the same day, [D.N.] gave his friends an
update as he posed with his community service order: "Think the suit worked.
F--- the courts polis and community service still no daen it!!!"" The caption
in THE TELEGRAPH reads: "[D.N.] posted a picture on Facebook of him in the
outfit suit he wore to court before later saying: 'Think the suit worked'."
Boyle notes: "Probation officers preparing pre-sentence reports for the court
had spotted [D. N.'s] taunts on social media and raised them with the judge.
After being returned to court, [D. N.] admitted breaching the community service
order. [D. N's] defence solicitor, [J. M], told the court his client was drunk
when he made the jibes, adding: "He then became not just an idiot, but an idiot
who drank and wrote on Facebook.""
Boyle goes on: "Judge Ritchie told [D. N.]: "It's always interesting to see a
different view on sentencing as in 'I'm out bro, easy'. As they say, LOL."" --
which is the crux of the point McEvoy is making. Note that Judge Ritchie uses
TWO comparatives:
I) "as" -- "as in "I'm out bro, easy". -- "I'm out bro, easy" IS an actual
utterance by [D. N.]. So the use of "as in" may be deemed rhetorical.
("Philosophers like Russell are mentioned in "Indignation"" sounds odd when
Russell himself IS mentioned). Admittedly, "It's always interesting to see a
different view on sentences; to wit: 'I'm out bro, easy'. As they text, /lal/."
II) "as" -- "as they say" -- For McEvoy, "As they say", as prefacing "LOL",
implicates that Judge Ritchie is merely aligning with the register of the lingo
of "I'm out bro, easy" and that the Judge's laughing out loud (in propositional
terms, the judge is laughing out loud) is at this previous utterance, "I'm out
bro, easy"), and with the judge's sincere opinion that he finds it "always
interesting to see a different view on sentencing." Note incidentally that "to
see a different view" involves two lexemes from the language of perception:
'see' and 'view' (cfr. Grice, "Some remarks about the senses" and Warnock, "On
what is seen"). Boyle goes on: "The BBC reported that the judge added: "I gave
you two chances. You didn't take the chances." Boyle goes on to quote Judge
Ritchie verbatim: ""I hope you [D. N.] don't think I'm doing this out of anger.
In truth it enlivened what was otherwise a dull day."" This contrasts with
Judge Lynch who explicitly told Mr. H. that she was not concerned, "nor anyone
here, except perhaps you" care about what you think." "I know," Mr. H. had
confessed. The caption reads: "Judge Norman Ritchie passed sentence at the High
Court in Glasgow." Boyle concludes his report: "[Judge Ritchie] ordered that
[D. N.], who is serving an 8-month jail-term for assault and breach of the
peace, have his prison sentence extended by 9 months." Note again the specific
use of numerals in judicial language. Boyle goes on: "[D.N.] was one of 8
people who ended up in court after [I.M.], who has learning difficulties, was
called a "beast" and chased until he threw himself out of a window." Boyle is
now explicit as to what made I. M. 'vulnerable'. Boyle concludes: "During that
hearing, Judge Ritchie described the group as "a pack of animals"" -- where,
had he prefaced this with, "as they say" would have been otiose and
anti-Aristotelian (for Aristotle, as indeed, for Darwin, Homo sapiens is an
animal -- but to stick at that is to be "less informative than is required"
when Homo sapiens is also rational. The use of the collective "pack" seems to
disimplicate "Homo sapiens" -- in that it's usually WILD, irrational, animals
that go 'in packs'." The argument makes a distinction between oratio recta ("As
they say, LOL") and oratio oblique in Boyle's report, alla, "The judge said
that the was laughing out loud", or "The judge told [D. M.] that he was
laughing out loud."
Unfortunately, etymologically, oratio recta and oratio oblique share the
etymology. In Boyle's paraphrase, in 'oratio obliqua' -- alla "the judge told
[D. N.] that he [the judge] was laughing out loud.", it has been argued, that,
as in contemporary German, the '-that' is an archaic demonstrative. So the
logical form of Boyle's report comes out as, alla, "Judge Ritchie told [D. M.]
THAT: he was laughing out loud." So one has to be careful. Or not.
Cheers,
Speranza
REFERENCES
Baker, G. P. & P. M. S. Hacker, "Language, sense, and nonsense". Blackwell.
Burton-Roberts, N. Implicature and modality.
Davidson, D. On Saying That.
Grice, Way of Words.
Hart, H. L. A. The concept of law. Clarendon.
Urmson, "Parentheticals," in Mind.