Why Grice found Witters 'pretentious': "die schein-bare logische Form des Satzes nicht seine wirkliche sein muss"

Witters wrote, irreverently:

"Russels Verdienst ist es gezeigt zu haben, dass die schein-bare logische Form des Satzes nicht seine wirkliche sein muss.“ (4.0031)

This has been losely translated by Ogden as:

"Russell's merit is to have shown that the apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one”

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For Grice is a matter of 'common ground'

I say:

"I went to the opera yesterday. It did suck"

"My aunt's cousin went to see that opera too; and he seems to agree with you."

"It would be otiose," Grice writes, to "suppose that my interlocutor knows that I have an aunt, let alone that she has a cousin", yet we use those phrases all the time in conversation. One time too many, in my opinion.

There is this idea that there is non-controversial stuff which is taken for granted. It has what Grice calls 'common ground status', which he represents with a square-bracket, or a subscript:

Pegasus-exists.
Pegasus-1-exists-2

Pegasus-1 does-not-2 fly.
--- Because he does not exist. Or because he lacks wings. Or...

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In the case of this point by Russell noted by Witters:

"The king of France exists, and he is bald"

This is NOT the real logical form

'wirkliche Logische form'

but an apparent logical form

'scheinbare logische form'

--- As when we say, "he hit a duck, but it wasn't a real duck, but a plastic duck".

I wouldn't call a 'plastic flower' a 'flower', but people around me are so loose that I should know better.

So, the logical form is that given by the Russellian expansion of 'the king of France is bald'.

But assuming that 'There is a king of France' is part of the common ground, it makes it immune to assertion. It is assertively inert, as it has been said (-- mutatis mutandis for "Kill the King of France!")

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Russell did say,

"Grammar is a pretty good guide, if you ask me, to logical form."

---- Alas, my grammar teachers disagreed, but then, they had no clear idea as to what logical form is:

"I can't care less"
---- Logical form: "I can care less"

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And so on.

I would think that 'apparent logical form' is NO logical form, pedantically. So Russell's merit must lie elsewhere!

Pietroski considers:

"No representative is a politician"

He notes that 'a' is inferentially inert there, and should not feature in the logical form of the sentence. I agree.

On the other hand, Grice's example:

"He is meeting a woman this evening"

is a different animal in that 'a' MUST feature in the logical form.

For one, it could be his wife.