[lit-ideas] The Implicatures of Death
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:35:37 EDT
"He fell on his sword"
In a message dated 8/29/2010 1:57:33 P.M., donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
"The expression "fell on his sword" has a strange personal impact as it
was once long ago suggested to me that a client was being invited to fall on
his sword by the judges [I think correctly suggested, given their comments]
but I immediately thought he was therefore being asked to prostrate himself
rapidly on his penis. I agree it's not funny."
Oddly, Grice wrote on this:
He used the example to prove Donald Davidson wrong (in "The logical form
of action sentences"). Grice writes:
"One Roman soldier fell on his sword because he lost his legion and could
not face the disgrace which, to his mind, attended his responsibility for
the deaths of so many people; another Roman soldier lost his legion because
he fell on his sword, tripping on it in the dark and as a result knocking
himself out, so that when he regained consciousness, the legion had moved on
and he was unable to find it."
--- Davidson proposed two different 'logical' forms for the above. For
Grice it only has one.
"In general," Grice writes, "the implicatures of death have to be
calculated".
His other example is:
"push up the daisies".
He contrasts this 'rather vulgar idiom' with 'fertilising the daffodils',
which he favoured:
"If I shall then be fertilising the daffodils, I shall have no time for
reading".
Grice analyses the implicatures of the dictum.
"On one reading, it seems obvious that the task of fertilising the
daffodils is a hard one -- so who can read in the proceedings."
He compares it with:
"If I shall then be HELPING the GRASS to grow, I shall have no time for
reading."
--- "In this case, the ambiguity -- that I may be assisting marijuana to
mature -- seems immaterial. Unless it isn't".
Speranza -- Bordighera
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