Grice at the Mezzanine

In WoW:363 Grice notes that we distinguish bewteen

'ground-floor' -- an Americanism for 'first floor'

and

OTHER floors.

This Grice connects with 'dictiveness'

"P; so, Q."

But 'so' is INFORMAL for 'ergo'.

And what about gestures?

Grice wants to say that the ground-floor vs. mezzanine distinction does NOT apply to 'formality'. Why?

"I have confined myself to remarking
that dictiveness" (the second-best
candidate for 'central signification')
"seems to be restricted to the
ground-floor leve, however that
may be determined, while formality
seems to be unrestricted with regard to
level."

Why?

Is this a matter of what Grice rather otiosely, but charmingly, calls "natural necessity"? We don't think so.

We submit that to allow for 'level' differences with regard to 'formality' would be the most otiose thing to do.

Consider a gesture.

Grice considers the courtly bow to signify 'politeness'. This is a formal gesture. I can think of INFORMAL gestures (the middle finger, for example, originally used to mean, 'pluck ye').

But, I contend,

the use of the MIDDLE FINGER is ALWAYS rude. And it won't do to say, 'at the level of the ground-floor', the gesture was rude, but NOT at the mezzanine.