Case IV (and last): "Excuse me, madam"

by JLS
--- for the GC.

--- the Last but not least of the cases is where something is signified 'wihout formality and without dictiveness'.

---

WoW:362.

Scenario:

"At a Departmental meeting, one of my collegues
provides a sustained exhibition of
temperamental perversity and caprice;
at the close of the meeting I say to HIM as
per header."

----

"or alternatively I usher him through the
door with an elaborate courtle bow."

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"What my words or my bow convey
is that HE has been behaving
like a prima donna"

--- but cfr. Kramer, "When a prim donna does NOT behave like one."

----

"But" [neither Grice's words nor Grice's bow] "do NOT say that this is so". "Nor is it part of the conventional meaning of any words or gestures used by me that is so."

---- Here, the point of the conventional meaning of an elaborately courtly bow may be something to consider.

And of couse the etymology of 'madam' to mean, 'my dame'. If "HIM" was "HER", I would think the implicature is SUBTLER (and possibly will be misunderstood).

---- (In the days of Grice, there were no female "Fellows" of St. John's college, let's be reminded.).

----

----

So 'here is something conveyed or signified" without formality and without dictiveness. A case for analysis.

While "Excuse me, madam" is a charmer, the fact that Grice is suggesting, "or alternatively" as he otiosely has it, a mere gesture is a wink to the idea and possibility that for each of the other three cases, something along similar gestural lines can be provided. And I will, or (alternatively) not.