What the Sexton Meant

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

--- THANKS TO L. J. Kramer (in "McCafferty") for bringing the Paul Revere illustration as a case of Gricean 'established' (never conventional) meaning of an utterance type.

As Kramer notes, a flashy car would NOT have been the optimal strategy to use. Among other reasons: this was a nightly endeavour, and an ostentatious car (in some of the suburbs of Boston) would NOT be ostentatious enough, especially at night. There are technical iconveniences with the idea of a car, never mind a flashy one, too. (cfr. piggyback).

As the wiki entry that Kramer's comment links to reads:

"On April 16, 1776, Paul Revere instructed one Robert Newman, the sexton of the Old North Church, to send a signal by lantern to alert colonists in Charlestown as to the movements of the troops when the information became known."

Since if the information was not known, the issue arose as to whether we could call it 'information' at all ("To know a piece of information is usually a task, for the sceptic", Grice remarks. That's why he never went for journalism).

The wiki entry goes on:

"One lantern in the steeple would signal the army's choice of the land route, while two lanterns would signal the route "by water""

-- or strictly, "not by land" -- "I devised the semiotic mechanisms on strict binary lines", Revere recollects.

"... across the Charles River (by water across the Charles River according to Revere's letter, not by sea)".

---

"We wondered if we would have three lanters to mean by 'air' -- but we disbelieved the Brits could do that. "Sea" is not water -- as anyone who has tasted the liquid of the Charles can testify. But I thought that having four lanters to signify 'sea', as opposed to fresh water may have confounded the sexton, never mind his recipients."

----

The wiki entry goes on:

"Revere wrote in his Diary"

""I returned at night thro Charlestown. There I agreed with a Col. Conant, and some other Gentlemen, whose names escape me, that if the wicked British went out by Water -- i.e. fresh water, as it is commonly referred to as, we would shew [sic] two Lanthorns [sic] in the North Church Steeple; and if by Land, one, as a Signal;"

"What's a lanthorn?", Newman inquired.

Revere had a strong French accent, and would often hypercorrect his own speech. He thought that a lantern was like a 'horn' with a 'lant', and he would make an effort to interpolate the aspirated /h/ sound in 'lant-horn'. Newman, who was more of a dyslexic type, could care less about intrusive mid-syllabic aspirations, and preferred the spelling 'lantern' and 'show' ON THE WHOLE.

The wiki continues to quote from Revere's rather illiterate journal entry:

"And I thought this was good, for we were aprehensive it would be dificult to Cross the Charles River, or git [sic] over Boston neck. I left Dr. Warrens, called upon a friend, and desired him to make the Signals."

This is a neo-Prichardianism. Revere desired his friend to make them signals. What is that Revere desired? Not his friend, obviously, but that he (Revere's unnamed, important friend) to "make them signals": the lanthorns, that is.

Revere goes on:

"I then went [to my] Home, took my Boots and Surtout, and went to the North part of the Town, Where I had kept a Boat; two friends rowed me across Charles River, a little to the eastward where the Somerset Man of War lay."

I know the area well, and found it slightly stupid that the Bostonians never CHANGED the name of the river. I have loads of bibiography about the thing, since, when I was in Harvard (officially to study what Grice had done at Emerson Hall) I got so bored that I spent my days walking along the right side of the shore, and buying second hand books on the River.

"And how would you like the river be named, if it may please your Majesty?". "Why, the Charles, like I", was Charles's blunt reply. Etc.

Borges wrote a short story, called "The Charles" where he recollects his days as a 1967 lecturer at Harvard, like Grice.

----

The wiki entry goes on:

"It was then young flood, the Ship was winding, and the moon was Rising."

I suppose all that is informative enough.

"They landed me on Charlestown side. When I got into Town, I met Col. Conant, and several others; they said they had seen our signals."

From which, I gather, Revere inferred that they KNEW what they meant, too. Cfr. "Yes, I saw the lanthorns". "So?". "So what?". "They were meant to signify things, you know". "Ooops. I missed that."

----

The wiki entry goes on:

"I told them what was Acting, and went to git me a Horse; I got a Horse of Deacon Larkin. While the Horse was preparing, Richard Devens, Esq. who was one of the Committee of Safty, came to me, and told me, that he came down the Road from Lexington, after Sundown, that evening; that He met ten British Officers, all well mounted, and armed, going up the Road."

As Kramer notes, it is not clear how the established meaning of the one lanthorn: land; two lanthorns, water -- WAS established.

In all honesty, I believe the real signal they did get was the Brits theirselves: by land or sea.

----

The wiki goes on:

"This was done to get the message through to Charlestown in the event that both Revere and Dawes were captured. The sexton, Richard Newman and Captain John Pulling momentarily held two lanthorns in the Old North Church, as Paul Revere himself set out on his ride,"

-- this is the Gricean bit:

"And they did this to indicate [signal, mean, suggest, implicate, even, hint, promise, consider, belief, make-belief, inform, persuade, convince...] that the Brits were in fact crossing the Charles River that night."

This was what Bach would call 'saturation' (echoing Recanati, who speaks French).

For the two lanthorns just meant:

"water".

To over-read that to mean: 'the water of the CHARLES river is an implicature, almost. And possibly cancellable -- but more about that below.

The wiki goes on:

"Revere rode a horse lent to him by John Larkin, Deacon of the Old North Church."

And the rest as they say (and what preceded, matter of fact) is legend.

----

One lanthorn: land
Two lanthorns: water.

Utterer: tipster: Richard Newman: sexton of Old North Church:

-----

Kramer comments (words):

"As a back-up plan, Revere instructs one Richard Newman, sexton of the Old North Church to hang a lanthorn that colonists across the Charles River could see."

Kramer wonders:

"How the colonists would know their meaning
is not made clear, but apparently they did know it.)"

Matter of fact, we don't require that. Only that they ASSUME it.

Confront Grice:

"The widest possible range is given
where creatures"

-- our Richard Newman and the across-the-river colonists --

"use for these purposes a range [Grice can repeat words in the same sentence, but with different usages] of communication devices"

--- a lanthorn, two lanthorns.

"which have no antecedent connection AT ALL
with the things that they communicate or represent,"

--- This is where I was wondering if Revere is not implicating that Connant was rather dumb. "He said he saw the lanthorns alright". But that was hardly the point. The point is whether he knew (or cared) where those two lanthorns were supposed to mean. At this point one suspects that a flashy car would have possibly be a better idea, with all the inconveniences that it would represent -- teach Newman to drive, for example --, included.

Grice goes on (WoW:26):

"and the connection is made, simply, because
the knowledge, or better, the non-factive
supposition, or even more weakly, the 'assumption',
of such an artificial connection is
prearranged".

On re-reading Kramer:

"How the colonists would know their meaning
is not made clear, but apparently they did know it.)"

Of course the idea is that this is "know x" rather than know that p. Yes, one wonders how Revere publicised the code.

I suppose he was EXPECTING the Brits to come by LAND (as they did not): for otherwise he would have established ONE lanthorn to mean 'by water' and Two lanthorns to mean 'by land'. But he chose the reverse. I suppose that, had I been Richard Newman, I would have required to have the rules written down for me. Plus, I would have told the servant to hold the lanthorns his-self, which would require that the writing be clear and precise.

Kramer continues:

"The code was "One lanthorn if by land and two lanthorns if by water"".

I suppose this begs the question of a double attack.

Kramer reflects:

"As it was night-time, driving a flashy car probably would have been less effective, so PR wisely went with the church lanterns. Yankee ingenuity at its finest."

Yes. Of course, as I use 'flashy', it would have been pretty effective and surely visible at night (On the other hand, a flashy car, in my idiolect, would have been less effective during the day time.

I think Revere's monotonic binarism bores me.