Grice on "

Grice was sometimes scared by quotes.

His polemic was against Carnap.

Carnap had noted that FL (formal languages, NOT foreign languages) are not NL (natural languages). Natural languages need 'regimentation'. One important regimentation, Carnap proposed, was the 'order'

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

i.e. second-order calculus, but Carnap claims, reducible to first-order calculus.

If Jack sees x and finds it _pretty_ then it _is_ pretty (for Jack).

This is different from

"Beauty" is in the "eye" of the beholder.

But sometimes we do need to 'meta-language' things. The distinction object-language/meta-language is Russell's and used by Grice in his

Bootstrap,
don't make your meta-language richer than your object-language

But people, and worst, people in the street, Grice noted, seldom learn.

Consider this site, "The Gallery of "Misused" Quotes" -

The photo of a baseball player, hangs on the wall of an Italian diner in Massachusets. It reads, sic:

"Great Food" "Best Wishes"

The websiter comments: "Surely the implicature is that the food was _mentioned_ rather than _used_ as great, and ditto his unwelcomed wishes". Etc.