[lit-ideas] Re: "No offence meant", "None taken": the implicature

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 05:44:01 EDT
I forgot this (interesting, I hope) point from the OED. Before  providing the 
quotes that I have already provided for 'no offence' [sic], the  OED goes to 
define this 'colloquialism', as it calls it:
 
 
            no offence  (colloq.): 
                        do not take offence; 
                        no offence is meant or taken.
 
So we see here that there are _three_ paraphrases involved.  The first is an 
'imperative':
 
                 do not take offence.
 
or, as I prefer
 
                 do not take offence!
 
(to mark it _is_ an imperative).
 
The two others are more of an indicative mode, with different  'verbs':
 
                   no offence is meant
                   no offence is taken.
 
The third, 'no offence is taken', I take to belong to the  addressee, which 
we should consider under a separate section. I want to consider  here the 
distinction between the imperative-mode and the indicative-mode  versions.
 
One feature of the imperative-mode version,
 
              'You do not take offence!'
 
has the simplification that no mental state on the part of the  utterer is 
made explicit. Besides, that is, that the utterer's desire that no  offence 
should be taken by the addressee. But nothing is said about whether the  
offence 
is MEANT.
 
This is a good point, because it allows us to define _meant_  offence as an 
offence _meant_ to be taken as such by the addressee. So it's  ALWAYS the 
effect or response (as Grice would prefer) on the addressee that  matters.
 
My idea is that the process is Gricean -- yet sneaky -- in  that offence is 
meant as be taken as such in a Gricean kind of way. Sometimes it  works, as 
when P. Stone takes his friend for his candour. Sometimes it doesn't. 
 
Grice seems to have been interested in this sort of  communicative process 
from early in his career. In his 'Meaning' (1948) --  mainly a discussion of 
Stevenson's _Ethics and language_ then almost fresh from  the press, Yale UP -- 
Grice writes of the case of 
 
                  'cutting someone on the street'
 
-- The scenario is different from cases of linguistic  expression of 'no 
offence'. But there are some similarities, as to whether the  intention that 
the 
addressee will take offence be recognised or not. 
 
Grice is comparing two cases. In the first he says  'communication' is not 
achieved:
 
-- As an examiner, I fail a man. I may well cause him  humiliation. And, if I 
am vindictivie, I may intend this effect on his part, and  even intend him to 
RECOGNIZE my intention.
 
     Grice's diagnosis:
     Yet, I should NOT be inclined to say  that my failing him _meant_
     (in a non-natural way)  anything.
 
                 Comment. One may take sides against this. We may
                 imagine the question to give offence:
 
                         A: What's the first part of the American 
constitution?
                         Ritchie: You mean the green cover?
                         A: No, I mean the first _written_ part
                         Ritchie: The title.
                         A: Mmm. No (marks a minus). Think deeper, Dr. 
Ritchie.
                             It  starts with a 'p'.
                        Ritchie:  The prolegomena.
                         (A signifies no with her head and marks another 
minus)
                         Ritchie: the proemium ... the perilipomena.
                         A (smiling tangentially -- telephone rings) Allo? 
You are
                                getting closer, Dr. Ritchie, but no cigar yet.
                               The  second letter is indeed a 'r', and it has 
two
                                syllables, perhaps one in fasty Scots.
                         Ritchie: I give up! Forget about American 
nationality!
 
Later that evening, Ritchie finds that they wanted him to say  "preamble". So 
he make take _offence_ at his having _failed_ on that particular  section -- 
He still _got_ American nationality.
 
So the examiner question can be qualified.
 
In any case, Grice wants to contrast it with a second  scenario:
 
"Compare that with this.
 
                     "I  cut someone in the street"
 
Grice's diagnosis:  

"In this case, I  DO feel inclined to assimilate this to the cases
            of non-natural meaning [we have been discussing in this essay],
            and this inclination seems to me dependent on the fact that
       
                     I COULD NOT REASONABLY EXPECT HIM
                     to be distressed (indignant, humiliated [-- and I add 
'offended',
                     or as having 'taken offence' JLS]
 
          UNLESS  he recognised my INTENTION to affect him in this 
          way 
 
         [I'm  stretching the example, because it would be odd to
         shout from  the other side of the street, "Offence meant!" or
         even "No  offence meant" as we cut him]
 
The third case, "If my college stopped my salary altogether, I  might accuse 
them of ruining me; if they cut it by one pound, I might accuse  them of 
insulting me; with some larger cuts I might not know quite what to  say."
 
We could imagine written statements for that
 
                                      The Body
                                      St. John's College,
                                      Oxford
 
        Mr.  Grice
        Banbury  Road
         Oxford.
 
        Dear Mr.  Grice,
 
        No offence, but we  are cutting your salary by one
        pound. 
 
                                       Cheers,
 
                                                [illegible]
 
         ----------------------
 
         Dear Mr.  Grice
 
         No offence  [meant to be taken by you] but we stopping
         your salary  altogether. The position is still holdable as
         an honorary  one -- and with a right to the Friday
         ecumenical  service and bring-and-share.
                                                 Cheers,
 
                                                             [illegible]
 
 
          -----
 
          Dear  Grice,
 
          Due to  the restrictions of the post-war depression that
         the whole  varsity and indeed dear old country ('we 
         must all  stick together') is suffering, we are cutting
         your salary  by (pounds) 150.
         
         Do not take  offence! It can happen to anybody
 
                                        Cheers,
 
                                                    [illegible]
 
--- 
 
Grice was very fastidious as to what type of reaction he would  assume in 
each case, depending on the sum -- no doubt the reactions may vary  from one 
individual to the other.
 
P. Stone says that "No offence" ALWAYS is offensive. It's an  underhand 
expression that brings offence as a topic. I agree. I'm surprised Mark  Antony 
used 
it for Cleopatra (in Shakespeare) who he was hoping to mate  with.
 
Strawson's point in "Freedom and Resentment" -- an essay Grice  loved as the 
ONLY type of moralistic philosophy he could swallow from a  philosopher -- and 
this because Strawson was his friend and former tuttee -- is  that we can 
only TAKE offence at acts which spring from the autonomy (so  Okshewski has no 
say on this matter).
 
Thus, if a giraffe, during a safari, piss you on the face --  as you observe 
her from a convertible, you CANNOT take offence.
 
(with the giraffe, perhaps with the driver).
 
-- Parrots are different.
 
If somebody dies of cancer and therefore causes you to have to  attend a 
funeral in the meaning of nowhere, you still cannot _take offence_ at  the dead 
or 
dying person, because her disease was, ceteris paribus, not  something she 
could control.
 
If somebody is a maniac-depressive and offends you, you should  NOT take 
offence if you understand that the person was under severe medical  treatment.
 
This limits, Strawson, says the cases only to what Grecian  students do. They 
recall a case when they had this Balkan student, who  bribed Gardiner into 
allowing the Balkan student for an overnight visit to  London.
 
The Oxford philosophers spent a whole Saturday morning  discussing ways of 
expressing that one HAD taken offence.

Nowell-Smith, in the role of the straight man, said  that the proper way to 
signify that one has taken offence would be to say, 
 
                     NIKOLAIDES enters room, offers money and says,
                          "I hope that you will not be offended by this 
somewhat 
                           Balkan approach".
                     GARDINER: (i) I do not take bribes on principle. 
                                                  (Nowell-Smith's suggestion)
                                            (ii) No, thanks (Austin's 
suggestion)
 
Nowell-Smith went on discussing whether the implicature here was that  
Gardiner did take offence. Austin's suggestion seems to imply that a MINOR  
offence 
was taken, and that you do not need to _explicate_ (as per an  explicature_) 
the reason for your taking offence, but keep the conversation  smoothly Oxonian 
all the time. 
 
Cheers,
                    
J. L. Speranza,
Buenos Aires, Argentina
 
JL




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[lit-ideas] Re: "No offence meant", "None taken": the implicature

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