From Quinion, World Wide Words:
"Robert Nathan e-mailed, "These fatal slayings are the very worst
kind." He had seen a sad story in the Daily News Wire Services over
a headline which appeared in numerous American newspapers: "Police
search for gunman in fatal South Park slaying"."
----
Gricean rationale:
i. Do not be more informative than is required:
'fatal slaying': overinformative.
Problem with this approach: 'fatal slaying' is NOT overinformative: it is stupid.
ii. There is no Gricean maxim, 'avoid redundancy'.
iii. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
'fatal slaying' infringes this. Again, as per, i., Rather than long, it is Stupid.
----
Gricean outlook. Kramer has mentioned this Japanese mania of having the worst headlines. What we do at the GC it to provide a rationale.
--- Etymologial fallacy:
Quinion and Robert Nathan should know that 'fatum' ('fate') has NOTHING to do with 'death'.
"Police search for gunman in fatal South Park slaying".
Where _is_ South Park?
Did they find him?
How do they know it was a male? (Could it not have been a transgender: Here is where we DO need 'positive discrimination' or 'affirmation'.
fatal NN slaying
is different from (or 'then' as my friend writes -- Jack his name):
'fatal slaying'.
The fact that a PARK and a South(ern) one is interpolated between the slaying and fate makes for all the difference:
----
Incidentally, 'fatum' relates to Kramer on 'evolutionary necessity'. How necessary can be evolution? (He can expand, perhaps in different header. Grice loved TALK of necessity). Personally, I think evolution is CONTINGENT, rather than necessary.
But back to the gunman:
"Police search gunman IN fatal South Park slaying"
What was fatal?
I submit that the writer -- perhaps a Buddhist? -- was thinking that while the slaying was fatal (i.e. it had to be - cfr. "It ain't necessarily so", in Porgy and Bess), it may be not fatal that the police search will arrive at a good end for the police (surely not a good end for the gunman).
Strawson was obsessed with that. In Grice's favourite essay -- Strawson's Freedom and Resentment -- Strawson writes of 'fate':
"'fate' is the least of the philosophical notions, or, rather, it is the least philosophical of the notions. Philosophers don't believe in 'fate'".
A fatal slaying?
A fated slaying.
The problem is Greek. The Greeks called "Fate", "Moira". The fates were the Wyrd sisters of pre-destination.
"He was fated to die".
'fated' is perhaps better than 'fatal'. There's also fatuous.
'fatal' slaying also involves a Humean Projection. What was that made the slaying a 'fatal' one?
The idea is that the gunman shot his gun. The bullet hit the victim. The slaying, i.e. the gunman's slaying of the 'victim' -- a fatal victim, as it transpired -- was the predetermined condition for the victim ceasing to exist.
The legality of the proceedings ensued that the police is now searching for the gunman. South Park is a notorious dangerous site. Where is it?
What slaying is not fatal.
For a libertarian who does NOT believe in 'fate':
"Police search gunman in South Park slaying" will just do. But to suppose that the redundancy is non-Griceist is non-Griceist. Etc.
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"South Park" is a popular US animated satire about kids in Colorado who have bizarre, politically relevant experiences. One of the kids is named Kenny, and Kenny's shtick is that he dies in every episode. "They killed Kenny, the Bastards!" say the other kids. And then Kenny reappears in the next scene or episode as if nothing had ever happened. Consequently, South Park is the one place (I nearly said "on Earth," but that's not entirely clear) where one needs to know whether a slaying is indeed fatal.
ReplyDeleteExactly. And there's still the issue of 'evolutionary necessity'. Since I loved the way Kramer labelled himself a 'reductionist', I'll revise that in two different posts: one on necessity, and one on reductionist.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info on the animated satire.