The Griceian Alternative

by JLS
for the GC

As I read on free will and stuff, I am fascinated by this question, that once I analysed elsewhere, on the etymology of 'alternative'. It seems it means just 'two' (alter ego, the other, i.e. second, self). This should not lead us to scepticism. After all, the main alternative, to echo Hamlet is,

p v - p

---- (and indeed, as Jennings note in his "Genealogy of Disjunction", 'other' means 'second' in old English). But let us review some of the implicatures (some perhaps 'unintended' if such there are) as I read from English usage experts at, say,

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/alternate-versus-alternative.aspx

"This week we’ll discuss choices about how best to use the words “option” and “alternative.” Frequently “option” and “alternative” are used interchangeably. But there is an [implicatural] difference. Do you know what it is?"

"Let’s say Horatio has a primary plan of action. He says,

i. I’m going to finish this report before we leave on our family trip this holiday weekend.
That way I can enjoy the holiday, help with the driving, and relax when we get home Sunday afternoon.

"Great plan, but is that the only possibility? No, Horatio has some alternatives to Plan A. Let’s count them:
Horatio can work on his report in the car going to and from the destination.
He can carve out some time while he's at Aunt Esther’s house and finish the report there; it should take only a few hours, right?
Horatio can wait until he gets home and spend Sunday evening doing the report.
For the sake of this illustration, let’s leave it at that. After all, Horatio has enough to handle without computing all the permutations.
So, Horatio has the original Plan A, and the three other possibilities."

"How many alternatives does he have?"

"Did you say four?"

"Nope."

"The answer is three—besides the original plan, Horatio has three alternatives."

"An alternative has to be an alternative to something else."

"In this case his three contingency plans are alternatives to Plan A (in case the original, favoured plan doesn’t work out, for example). Horatio does, however, have FOUR options."

"He could opt to finish that report in any of the four methods he has devised. The difference between the two is one—the number one, that is."

"Horatio will invariably have one more option than alternative."

...

*******************************************

[H]ard-core traditionalists [and I haven't checked with Cicero!] insist that

you should only use the word “alternative”

when there are TWO choices and no more because

"alternative" comes from the Latin word "alter," which means

"the other of two."

-----

I continue to read from the above link:

"However, our research shows that almost nobody
adheres to this “rule,”"

I wish I could consult Grice.

"including most modern style experts, so you can ignore it."

Actually, there MUST be slightly more serious treatments to that than that, but I cannot find it online. Merriam-Webster, perhaps, But can't find a pdf copy or good online document. I would even think perhaps Gowers' Plain English, or King's English by Fowler.

And so on.

It strikes me that the 'hard-traditionalists' may still mainting that if the number of forking paths (in a garden) say, is more than 2, there is, almost analytically, a bi-partisan, as it were, decision. But then, I'm probably missing some implicatures of 1/3, 1/4, and so on. Doctorow should correct me!

One commentary to the link above reads:

1/15/2010 6:55:55 AM

"Strictly speaking, there can only be one alternative to a given course of action, (one of two, as in alternate) but is has come to mean more than two through usage when 'other options' might be more accurate.
Vincent Waitzkin."

And I think I'm into something of the sort, with his use of 'strictly speaking'. I am thinking that perhaps 'implicature' AND "DISIMPLICATURE" (meaning less than we say) may be, er, ... an option. Or not, of course.

It all actually seems to relate to discussions I've read on 'or' and negation in, say, Ryle's symposium on 'Negation' (for the 1929 Aristotelian Society, along with Mabbott and Price) and which may relate to W. James's example, for those who know the Divinity Hall, of having to choose between (to quote from Doyle's site):

http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/james/

"What is meant by saying that my choice of which way to walk home after the lecture is ambiguous and matter of chance?...It means that both Divinity Avenue and Oxford Street are called but only one, and that one either one, shall be chosen."