---- By JLS
------- for the Grice Club
---- THANKS TO LAWRENCE J. KRAMER FOR reminding us of the great humor of the great Irwin Corey. As I posted in "Sex is..." (mixed-modal, "Sex is so open today that who needs a drive-in?") and in "Who killed Cock Robin", Grice allows that the logical form of a question can be misleading. So much Corey implicates.
From
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/03/jerry-mahlman-goes-upside-heads-of.html
Audience question: Why do you wear tennis shoes?
Corey:
Why do I wear tennis shoes?
That's a diffficult question, so to make it easier I'll divide it into two parts.
First: Why?
"Why" is a question of incredible depth and subtlety, one that has engaged and frustrated the great philosophers from Socrates up through the modern age.
To even attempt to answer would be to insult this great and brilliant tradition by suggesting that someone like myself deserves to be among their august company even for the briefest moment.
Now, as for the second part of your question:
Do I wear tennis shoes?
Yes."
---
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ReplyDeleteThe Implicatures of the Professor (Is: Irwin Corey)
---- By JLS
------- for the Grice Club
---- THANKS TO LAWRENCE J. KRAMER FOR reminding us of the great humor of the great Irwin Corey. As I posted in "Sex is..." (mixed-modal, "Sex is so open today that who needs a drive-in?") and in "Who killed Cock Robin", Grice allows that the logical form of a question can be misleading. So much Corey implicates.
From
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/03/jerry-mahlman-goes-upside-heads-of.html
Audience question: Why do you wear tennis shoes?
Corey:
Why do I wear tennis shoes?
That's a diffficult question, so to make it easier I'll divide it into two parts.
First: Why do I wear?
Before children I was thankful to have been born in the United States of America the most powerful, free, democracy in the world. I thought I would never wear, wear fore, wear up or out
After children I wear, and wear poorly at that
Now, as for the second part of your question:
Tennis shoes?
I am thankful for tennis shoes especially the velcro type. As well as saving valuable time, now I can hear the sound of my son taking off his shoes which gives me three extra seconds to activate the safety locks on the backseat windows right before he hurls them out the window at other cars on the freeway. There’s an incredible depth and subtlety in shoe types when it comes to court damage claims and I find that tennis shoes do the least amount of pocketbook damage. The heavier shoes are reifyingly more insulting.
REFERENCE: Donald Davidson, "Sport Performance Moods" in Inquiries into Truth By Way of Interpretation, Oxford, 1984, pp. 109-123.
I. C. Dengler aptly notes that Prof. Corey missed a few -- still an excellent routine and I wouldn't have killed it by copying it in the blog had it not been trasncribed already in the aforementioned _other_ blog. Cargan suggests the question already presupposes, and thus conversationally generally implicates:
ReplyDeleteWhy do I wear, simpliciter?
(cfr. the more informative, Why do I wear shoes?)
or "why is it that you wear, simpliciter?", for non-brief:
Cargan suggests a response alla Corey:
"Before children I was thankful
I would never wear. After
children I wear -- and poorly.
Cargan suggests an extra implicature with emphasis on tennis shoes: "Why do I wear tennis shoes, as are obviously on display on stage? Recall Corey is directing our attention to Grice's two quantitative maxims, "Do not ask what you already know", ruling out "Do you wear wearing shoes?" except as a flout. The implicature being, "You, member of the audience, are stupid asking such a triviality. On the other hand, "Why are you wearing (+> now) tennis shoes?" would have make the audience feel more stupid. As it is, Corey can pretend the questioner is questioning if, as a matter of habit ("Do you ...?"), he wears tennis shoes. And one can imagine Corey looking at his tennis shoes as he goes to the 'second' part of the question and with seriousness say, "Do I wear tennis shoes?" (LOOK DOWN), "Yes, I wear tennis shoes".
Back to the specifics the special velcro type of "tennis shoes", Cargan proposes, "What do you wear tennis shoes, when you are not playing, about to play, or having just played, tennis?" And he proposes then the answer giving the specifics of his choice of footwear:
"I am thankful for tennis shoes." Especially the velcro type. ... I find that tennis shoes do the least amount of pocketbook damage, should I find throwing them away to cars, and stuff".
Excellent, Cargan! Keep it up!
Etc.
.72717778
ReplyDeleteThe Gricean maxims of conversational strategy are regulated by a supermaxim which determines what is relevant or not for a particular observation. This supermaxim, involving a pragmatical knowledge, imposes specific restrictions on strategic awareness. It is called the “maxim of conversation topology” (in the Aristotelian sense of topos). Grice added a set of MAXIMS (or sub-principles) to complement
his principle, in order to spell out what being cooperative in conversation means: QUANTITY: 1. Make your conversational contribution as informative as is required. 2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. And recall Corey is directing our attention to Grice's qualitative maxims as well: Do not say what you believe to be false. 2. Do not ask what you already know, ruling out "commercial marmite Markham circles" except as a flout.
Thursday, 28 May 2009 12:29 UK
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Family see Jesus image in Marmite
The family said they found the image comforting
Enlarge Image
It may not be immediately obvious to everyone, but one family are convinced they can see the face of Jesus on the lid of a jar of Marmite.
Claire Allen, 36, said she was the first to notice the image on the underside of the lid as she was putting the yeast spread on her son's toast.
Her husband Gareth, 37, said he could not believe his eyes when he saw it.
Mr Allen, of Ystrad, Rhondda, said: "The kids are still eating it, but we kept the lid."
He explained: "Claire saw it first and called her dad to come and take a photo of it.
"When I first looked at it I wasn't sure, but when I moved it away from me it started coming out. I thought yeah, she's right - that's the image of Jesus.
People might think I'm nuts, but I like to think it's Jesus looking out for us
Claire Allen
Mrs Allen said her 14-year-old son Jamie had also remarked on the likeness.
She told the South Wales Echo: "Straight away Jamie said 'that looks like God', and my other boys (Robbie, four, and Tomas, 11) even said they could see a face.
"People might think I'm nuts, but I like to think it's Jesus looking out for us.
"We've had a tough couple of months; my mum's been really ill and it's comforting to think that if he is there, he's watching over us.
I enjoyed the collocation, "conversational topology", if only to rebut those 'trendish' mathematicians who never refer to Aristotle when they practice their brand of 'topology'. Indeed, it's the locus of Cicero. It's a great word, the 'topos' (and I cannot think about them without thinking of my friend Graziella Chichi who dedicated her life to them -- Bk. viii of Top. -- wrote her PhD on it too -- and we would discuss Gricean interfaces so often.
ReplyDelete--- I enjoyed, also, the idea of the marmite Jesus. It's amazing how 'factive' 'the image' can be, when you can't believe your eyes. For while seeing may not believing, believing should be seeing, right? Or something.
Or SOMETHING?? That about covers the de omne part of the Grice project. Et nullo makes for some conversationally atopological guesswork.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking thereunto I add:
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Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users of an outmoded"conversational topology". Indeed, it's the locus of Cicero. It's a great word, the 'topos' (and I cannot think about them without thinking of my friend Graziella Chichi who dedicated her life to them -- Bk. viii of Top. -- wrote her PhD on it too -- and we would discuss Gricean interfaces so often.
By Mark Ward
technology correspondent, BBC News
Windows logo, Getty
Windows 7 is one of few operating systems that are "4K aware"
Hard drives are about to undergo one of the biggest format shifts in 30 years.
By early 2011 all hard drives will use an "advanced format" that changes how they go about saving the data people store on them.
The move to the advanced format will make it easier for hard drive makers to produce bigger drives that use less power and are more reliable.
However, it might mean problems for Windows XP users who swap an old drive for one using the changed format. Since the days of the venerable DOS operating system, the space on a hard drive has been formatted into blocks 512 bytes in size.
The 512 byte sector became standardised thanks to IBM which used it on floppy disks.
While 512 bytes was useful when hard drives were only a few megabytes in size, it makes less sense when drives can hold a terabyte (1000 gigabytes), or more of data.
Floppy disks, Eyewire
The 512 byte format dates from the days of the floppy
"The technology has changed but that fundamental building block of formatting has not," said David Burks, a product marketing manager for storage firm Seagate.
This fine resolution on hard drives is causing a problem, he said, because of the wasted space associated with each tiny block.
Each 512 byte sector has a marker showing where it begins and an area dedicated to storing error correction codes. In addition a tiny gap has to be left between each sector. In large drives this wasted space where data cannot be stored can take up a significant proportion of the drive.
Moving to an advanced format of 4K sectors means about eight times less wasted space but will allow drives to devote twice as much space per block to error correction.