[lit-ideas] Re: "You Like Chinese Food"
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 21:30:05 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 6/12/2013 8:36:11 A.M. UTC-02,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
The Chinese tend to contract English expression - 'make shorter' as they
might say: so perhaps the cookie was saying Eric resembles Chinese food.
Even if NOT seen as a contraction, note that, as per my previous post,
etymologically, to 'like' is to _be_ like:
"The basic meaning seems to be "to be like" (see like (adj.)), thus, "to be
suitable."
E. Yost:
"The Fortune Cookie Form does not allow space for nuance. The
imperative-performative--some would say self-referential--fortune cookie
read, "You are reading a fortune cookie." It was wrong. I was only
imagining it."
Interesting that E. Yost should mention the performative side to this.
For surely a 'fortune' message should be, pragmatically, a prediction.
So one is expecting,
"You will/shall like Chinese food"
rather than the present,
"You like Chinese food"
which resembles the past:
"So far you have liked Chinese food".
----
It may be argued that, as the Chinese use the noun 'fortunate' and the
corresponding adjective, 'fortunate', there is a sense in which the message is
saying that Eric is being FORTUNATE in liking (or in being like) Chinese
food.
The Chinese point is the so-called homogeneity of conation.
Surely, if I say, "I like to go to Oxford", then, I am like going to
Oxford.
The British tend to minimise the homogeneity of conation by using the
potential:
"I'd like to go to Oxford", which is tantamount, implicaturally, to "I
would like to be like going to Oxford".
Etc.
Cheers,
Speranza
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