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Saturday, July 10, 2010

Zwicky on implicature

From A. Z., online:

"The voiceover goes, “What’s in YOUR wallet?” — an entirely ordinary English sentence, but with contrastive prosody, implicating that if viewers have something other than a Capital One card in their wallet, things could go badly for them in such circumstances, so they should get a Capital One card. Then came the “What’s on YOUR credit card?” campaign, featuring Capital One’s offer to configure the picture on clients’ credit cards to their liking. So you could have, say, fluffy kittens, if you wished."

A. Z. comments:

"The implicature in this case is much like in the first: if your credit card has something plain and impersonal on it, then you’re missing out on the pleasures of Capital One cards, so you should get a Capital One card."

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