Prhop -- Griceian scheme

Odd that we should have been referring to Schiffer recently. He has, somewhere, this ref. to Grice having told him that

"We must have lunch sometime"

_means_ other than what "it" 'says'.

This from today's World Wide Words, ed. M Quinion. He writes:

"So many of my attempts at finding the source of words end in
failure that it's always a pleasure to encounter one whose origin
is unequivocally known. My introduction to it was in the pages of a book by Philip Howard, formerly literary editor of The Times and a continuing commentator
on the vagaries and changing nature of English: "Related to euphemisms are those lying reversible
phrases that mean the opposite of what they say. The
English, who are a notoriously hypocritical race, and
anxious to be liked, have a peculiar proclivity for these
phrases. The late Sir Arnold Lunn invented the name
"phrops" for these euphemistic phrases that do not wear
their true meaning on their face.
The State of the Language, by Philip Howard, 1985. Sir Arnold Lunn (1888-1974) was a mountaineer, champion skier and religious controversialist.]
Examples of phrops are

1. We must have lunch sometime.

2. We must keep in touch

"both of which actually mean

3. my life's ambition is never to meet you again.

"The academic and legal formulation

4. With all due respect, p"

really communicates

5. I am about to demolish your argument and if at all possible your reputation with complete and utter disrespect.

A polite

6. I regret that a previous engagement
makes it impossible to accept your kind invitation

replaces the
truthful

7. I would rather be gnawed by a rabid stoat.

Any sentence
that begins

8. No doubt, p.

puts uncertainty into one's mind straight
away.

9. Needless to say, p.

(Cfr. Horn, "Needless to say, ...")

without fear of contradiction",

10. It is unnecessary to add p.

12. I would be the last to suggest that p.

are all
pretty much the opposite of a speaker's true meaning."

"A famously
double-edged phrop, created by Benjamin Disraeli (it has also been
attributed to Mark Twain, Groucho Marx, Henry James and John
Maynard Keynes, among others) is

13. Thank you for sending me your book, I shall lose no time in reading it

"The first appearance of the word I can trace was in an article in
the Daily Gleaner of Jamaica in October 1950."

"Sir Arnold seems to
have created it as a short form of

"phrase" + "opposite"".

I suggest, 'phrastic' (as per Hare, -- cited by Grice, twice in WoW, and Aspects of Reason).

"It is
still around, largely through Philip Howard's continuing affection
for it in The Times, though it hasn't reached any dictionaries."

Yet.