Non-Vacuous Names

---- by JLS
--for the GC

From today's World Wide Words, ed. M. Quinion:

--begin quoted text:

Q. In one of C P Snow's Strangers & Brothers series, Time of Hope,
I came across a verb that I'd not seen before: "I did not burke the
certain truths". What did Snow mean by "burke"? [John Boaler]

A. It's an intriguing verb.

It takes us back to the 1820s and that notorious pair, Burke and
Hare. Medical schools were finding it difficult to get enough
cadavers for the anatomic dissection essential to train students.
The only official source was executed criminals but their numbers
had been decreasing because fewer were being condemned to death,
while the number of students needing corpses was increasing. One
source was grave-robbing, carried out by low-life scavengers who
were given the ironic name of resurrectionists.

Brendan Burke and William Hare, two Irish immigrants to Edinburgh,
started their grisly trade by selling the body of a recently
deceased tenant of their boarding house to Dr Robert Knox, a local
anatomist. Having learned that bodies could be profitable, they
began to murder individuals, usually by getting them drunk and then
smothering them, to leave no marks on the bodies that would reduce
their value as specimens.

Burke was convicted of 16 murders and executed in January 1829; in
a fitting end, his body was publicly dissected at the Edinburgh
Medical College. Hare had turned King's Evidence and had been given
immunity from prosecution. The case caused a huge sensation, as did
the imitative but much more widespread activities of a gang in the
English capital which became known as the London Burkers. With the
public outcry over grave-robbing, these led to the passing of the
Anatomy Act 1832, which legitimised the donation of bodies for
medical science.

The Times report on 2 February 1829 of his public hanging recorded
of those attending that "every countenance wore the lively aspect
of a gala-day" and that Burke's name had already become an eponymic
verb: the spectators shouted "Burke Hare too!" By the time Charles
Dickens was writing his first novel less than a decade later, the
term was known to everybody:

"Why, sir, bless your innocent eyebrows, that's where
the mysterious disappearance of a 'spectable tradesman
took place four years ago." "You don't mean to say he was
burked, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick, looking hastily
round.
[The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens, 1837.]

By this time, too, the verb had become figurative. To burke is to
suppress, hush up, or avoid discussing something. It comes from the
idea of metaphorically smothering an issue. This is the sense in
which Snow used it. Though it's hardly common, it's still around:

In the case of the BNP [the British National Party],
both Government and Opposition need to be compelled to
confront the issue they have for so long burked; for it
is the mishandling of this which has allowed the BNP to
raise its ugly head.
[Belfast Telegraph, 20 Oct. 2009.]

By the way, "burke" has no connection with the British slang term
"berk" for a stupid person. That's rhyming slang, known from the
1920s if not earlier, short for Berkeley (or Berkshire) Hunt, even
though in British English the first parts of both are pronounced
"bark".

--- end quoted text.

So, we have Quine's theorem.

For any proper name (such as "Pegasus", or "Grice") we can create the corresponding predicate.

'a' becomes "A" in Quine's symbolism

Fa --> (Ex)Ax & Fx.

Case in point: Burke --> burke.

Strawson I think wrote on stuff 'growing capitals'.

"That is a nice congress"

But

"Congress decided it".

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Here we seem to have a Griceian inverse. Or something.

Grice, qua verb, is used by Dennett -- "to make a fine point"

And it's been used also by Kemmerling.

As opposed to 'disgrice' (Kemmerling in PGRICE).

Etc.