--- by JLS
--------- for the GC
---- J. KENNEDY REFERS TO 'THE HISTORICAL AVANT-GARDE', and we would like to hear more about them. I was re-reading Kramer's two comments on related things and he does use 'secret handshake'. In his 'Grice at the arts college' commentary, it's secret-handshake words'. In the earlier one, under "Iberian Grice' thread, is:
I would speculate that it's about how much work the reader who does not know the secret handshakes of the writer's social circle
---
Call me naive but I can't think of too many handshakes. Less so of handshake-words, secret or not. I get Kramer's point, etc. Indeed, I would think that Grice shook usually his hand with himself, as it were. Some of his jargon was NEVER USED by any other philosopher! He could become so kryptical and technical in parts (vide his "Utterer's meaning and intentions"). Each new sentence is sprinkled with a new technicism. There are so many of them, that one cannot think it was Grice's intention to present them as 'philosophical lexicon'. I mean, I am Gricean enough, and I repeat those technicisms, and have made an effort to understand them, etc. But in general, philosophers are pretty lazy and they are forever using Plato's jargon, rather.
---- Austin was just as individualistic. These two grand philosophers (Grice and Austin) were keen on neologisms that few would adapt. The same can be said of Hare (a philosopher of their generation), with their clistics and tropics and neustics and phrastic. And perhaps, to a lesser degree, Strawson.
It provoked people like Hacking or Dummett (the latter in "Truth and other enigmas") to say that implicature, illocutionary force, and presupposition -- the main topics of pragmatics as we know it -- while originating in technical ordinary-language philosophy (an oxymoron at that) -- belong best in linguistics. Of course I disagree, but can appreciate the point. Enough to want to have (or not) the Grice lexicon to hand. Etc.
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Call me naive but I can't think of too many handshakes.
ReplyDeleteGosh, JL, they wouldn't be secret if you could think of them.
No. I was thinking of teen-age handshakes, or racial things. I think I have seen special types of (literal) handshakes. (In fact, I was once attempted to be taught on that -- clumsy grammar there: I mean, some people tried to teach me a special handshake, but it was so difficult, I can't think I recall the thing). So I was suggesting we list them. Not per 'secret' but for 'varieties'.
ReplyDeleteOddly, when I was in the HOTEL (history of the English language) there was this thread on 'cack', which is 'shit' in Latin (cacare). This gives 'cackhand', I think, or left hand, as opposed to right hand. The thread then developed onto why we use the right hand to shake. The reason being that the left hand is used to wipe the derriere (the 'cackhand').
I like a secret sect. Borges has a short story on the "Sect of the Phoenix". They have a special secret ritual: some interpreters of the story suggest it's the act of copulation, but there are interpretive variants.
--- The story of the handshake. I was just trying to be literal as to varieties, and added Grice on technicism.
Oddly, Grice was into hands. He has this nice example of a Hand Wave, which he symbolises as HW: the utterer of HW means that his addressee has 'free way' (it's a traffic 'gesture').
I can imagine HS, for handshake.
By offering his HS, U means that he wants to greet A.
By offering his secret HS (word) U means that A is one of them.
Oddly, when Maria Elena Walsh (a renowned local poet) met Borges at the Richmond tea saloon on Florida Street she recalls, "We shook hands and I noticed that his hand felt like a dead fish". Ah well.
From the wiki entry on 'left-handedness':
ReplyDelete"Left hand shakes are a sign of disrespect – however the left hand shake is the standard in the international Scouting movement."
inverse snobbery?
But then the female counterparts are the 'brownies' so you never know.
-- the Gricean nature of it all: the marvels of coooperative coordination.
ReplyDeleteFrom wiki entry for 'dap greeting':
"dap is best known as a complicated routine of shakes, slaps, snaps, and other contact that must be known completely by both parties involved."
from wiki entry on "list of gestures", the thing defined in terms of Gricean necessary and sufficient conditions:
ReplyDelete"Handshake is a greeting [hyperlinked] ritual in which two people"
cfr. Grice on dyadic conversation. Try to shake hands with a third party and fail. Cfr. the One-Hand Clapping Company CD of Pub Songs (which I own) and my ref. above to Grice shaking hands with himself.
"grasp each others' hand and may move their grasped hands up and down."
'may' indicates it's not a necessary condition. The number of times they (the hands) go up and down may also be indicative (of something).
From wiki's real entry on 'handshake':
ReplyDelete"A handshake is a short ritual in which two people grasp each other's right hand, often accompanied by a brief up and down movement of the grasped hands."
Again the unnecessary idea of the movement. The vernacular is 'to give hand (reflexive)' rather than 'shake' them. So I assume in English it is a NECESSITY to move them. Otherwise it would be a misnomer -- right? (the 'shake' thing, I mean).
The 'reason' behind a convention -- hence not arbitrary and thus not primarily a 'convention':
ReplyDelete"The handshake is thought by some to have originated as a gesture of peace by demonstrating that the hand holds no weapon.[3][4][5]."
For Lewis and Grice, if a thing is held to have a FUNCTION (and is thus not arbitrary) it cannot be held to be 'conventional' per se.
The REASON behind the alternative 'left hand shake', in wiki under 'hand shake':
ReplyDelete"The idea came from a legend Baden-Powell heard while he was in West Africa. Two warring chiefs confronted each other, wanting peace. He dropped both his weapon and his shield. Not only was his right hand empty of a weapon he could attack with, but his left was empty of a shield of which to defend against the weapons of others with."
I like that since it matches the Gricean idea of things like euphemism (as language as shelter -- defense, the shield) and dysphemism (as language as weapon -- offense, the spear).
What we need then is,
ReplyDelete"The Guide to the Best Known Secret Handshakes".
From wiki, fraternity entry:
"Most Greek letter organizations today maintain traditions which are generally symbolic in nature and closely guarded secrets, calling it their ritual. They include an initiation ceremony, but may also include ... handshakes, and the form of meeting, amongst other things. Meetings of the active members are generally secret and not to be discussed without the formal approval of the chapter as a whole."
It adds, sort of amusingly:
"Due to the nature of hazing and the secretive nature of Greek letter organizations, hazing is largely underreported."
Hence the crying need for the volume.
For Grice, sneak is not Gricean. So the problem with the secret handshake is a good example of ... something. Etc.
Will go to the opera tonight, so as I get ready, some furtherisms:
ReplyDelete"digital" vs. 'analog' variants: the code is to shake hands. That's digital. The analog variants are 'analog': how strong the 'shake' (even the 'word' "shake" in the vernacular -- it's not like a cocktail, is it?) -- what it tells or 'says' about you, as the ref. in the wiki entry for 'handshake' goes -- etc. Who initiates it, etc., whether gloves are appropriate (they are in opera, wiki says), etc. are all analogical. The gender thing too: a woman is not expected to shake hands. The wiki has an illustration on Achilles, I think, shaking it, so it must be an old custom, etc. --.
The first secret hand shake in a Greek community (in the USA) was the invention of a mister or master. It departed slightly from the standard shakehand:
He reminisces:
"I wanted the thing to be secret. I was not sure how to keep the secret though. It occurred to me to device a variant of the standard handshake. The idea was to have a co-ordinated device that would 'tell' if the other was an 'initiate' or not. The handshake of our community involves five not-so-easy-to-follow instructions -- which you'll find in the flyer below. Do not circulate".
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"FLYER"
"1. Extend the right hand". "2. Articulate the finger No. 4 into a hook that will fit the hole of your partner's fig-gesture with his right hand. 3. Shake forward and then in a 45 degree angular declension to the floor while raising the finger no. 2 to entwine with your partner's finger no. 3. 4. Keep the angle back to 360 degrees in two movements towards your own self and 5. Back upwards in a 90 degree movement with your middle finger."
Or something.