To call a spade a spade

---- by JLS
-------- for the GC

IN HIS VALEDICTION Grice opposes:

i. *Those* 'guys' in the White House 'kitchen' _said_ 'Heigh Ho'.

ii. The President's advisers approved the idea.

-----

The first, but not the second, does NOT call a spade a spade.

Is that criminal?

-- Don't think so!

What kind of an 'idea' was the one the President was having, anyways [sic]. Surely not a Lockean idea that his back should be scratched. It is a budget policy, most likely. What are those idiots doing in the 'kitchen' anyway? They are not cooks ('too many cooks'). Why is usually 'advisers' in the plural? Do we vote for them? Are they wicked? Whose interests do they follow. Why does a President needs an 'adviser'. I know I would NOT if I were to become the President of Ruritania.

----

What does it follow from 'approve' an idea? Is the "High Ho" merely emotive, or do the idiots at least help the man to move forward towards the REALISATION of the idea?

---

Grice writes when he selected a formal register over trendy yet fickle 'slang'. He refers to 'formal' SIGNIFICATIONS as being such that

"the items or situations
SIGNIFIED are PICKED OUT
as such by their
falling
UNDER the conventional"

-- but he hated that word!

"meaning of the signifying
expressions"

--- Saussure on 'signifier' and 'signifiee'. Saussure's examples: arbor -- 'tree'.

---

---

i. The fact that a kitchen is a kitchen but these guys "in the kitchen" are not IN The kitchen -- but in the kitchen where IDEAS are concocted, involves an appeal to metaphor.

ii. 'Those guys' is hardly definite. These days, females are also 'guys' (vide Hilary Rodham).

iii. To Say "High Ho" is a 'natural' mark, as used by Southerners (or Northerners) to mean joy of one's mind. In Bulgaria, it means, "What a horrible day!" but the tone is different.

iv. Context.

---- When it comes to context, we NEED a conversational scenario where i and ii can count as synonymous. What is the 'protreptic' side to each? What are the differing extra implicatures. It seems that the duller ii version is implicature-free, of sorts.

It is More Informative. And it seems that the lack of respect in the utterer of (i) displays undue informality and a general disrespect for democracy as we know it.

Etc. Or not.