---- By J. L. S., for the Grice Club.
----
In "Comment" to "Riddles of the Sphynx" Kramer and I are analyising Marilyn vos Savant ("the most intelligent woman on earth") and her account of fallacies; in particular, 'to the mercyful heart', or, as she prefers, 'ad misericordiam'. This, she says, is usually a very good fallacy: it provides very good samples of very good _bad_ arguments.
Consider a missionary in Tonga. In general, Anglican missionaries are _allowed_ to marry (or date) the natives, etc. This one (missionary) spots a maiden, with whom he'll gladly make a date. By the time the maiden can provide what, in Gricean parlance, we would have as "her conversational move" (it may be a countermove), the missionary may confide, "it is usually too late"
Jenny's problem was, incidentally, the inverse:
Jenny made her mind up when she was twelve
That into furrin languages she would delve.
But at seventeen to Vassar, it was quite a blow,
That in twenty-four languages she couldn't say "no".
JL
---
Ref. A Tongan Dictionary:
holi ma kitti lucu chi chi chi, adv. yes.
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Ref. A Tongan Dictionary:
ReplyDeleteholi ma kitti lucu chi chi chi, adv. yes.
Then, thank God Molly Bloom wasn't Tongan.
From wiki, now a major film with Ewan McGregor -- based on the life of Norah Barnacle:
ReplyDeleteJoyce ("Molly Bloom") writes:
"I was a Flower of the mountain
yes
when I put the rose in my hair
like the Andalusian girls used
or shall I wear a red
yes
and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought
well as well him as another and
then I asked him with my eyes to ask
again
yes
and then he asked me would I
yes
to say
yes
my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him
yes
and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume
yes
and his heart was going like mad and
yes
I said
yes
I will
Yes. "
From wiki:
"The episode both begins and ends with "yes," a word that Joyce described as "the female word"."
""Yes" indicates "acquiescence and the end of all resistance"".
Do we know Tongan for the antonym?