Grice on u and U: utterer-token vs. that type of utterer

---

Jones, in "Stay tuned", comment, this blog:

"if we construe the semantics as indexed by a complex context which includes the speaker, it is the identity of the speaker which is in there, not his state of mind at the time of speaking."

I wonder.

Because 'u' is just a feature.

"Mr. Jones is an utterer"

"Mr. Speranza is an utterer".

Surely if we are going to take 'utterer's meaning' seriously (or what an utterer, u, means by ...) we need to know who the utterer is.

But on the other hand we do not want OED3 multipled by the population of English speakers, so that we have

Roger Bishop Jone's dictionary of English, etc.

This leads you to Marcus Singer.

This gentleman was in Buenos Aires once. The other day I came across the leafer he distributed. He gave a talk, at the rather palatial venue that the vernacular uni is, on 'Institutional ethics'. His examples were:

"Language, The Dictionary".

I approached him sort of angrily after his talk. "Surely you are not suggesting, as any old Frenchman would, that English is an institution."

He was from the Bible belt, so perhaps he was French in part.

I said,

"Surely Humpty Dumpty would disagree with you. For Humpty Dumpty claims that, ..."

At this point, rudely, he said,

"I have a train to catch".

It must have been a train of thought, because I wouldn't think he had a single ticket.