H. P. Grice, "Bobby-box implicatura"

Grice:

"In response to my exploration on conversation, I was given an example by a fellow playgroup member which seems to me, as far as it goes, to provide a welcome kind of support for the picture I am putting forward in that it appears to exhibit a kind of interaction between

the members of my list of conversational maxims to which I had not really paid due attention — perhaps for the matter not really concerning directly philosophical methodology.”

Suppose that it is generally known that Oxford and London were blacked out the day prior.

The following conversation takes place:

A: Did Smith see the show on the bobby box last night?

Grice:

“It will be CONVERSATIONALLY unOBJECTIONABLE

for B, who knows that Smith was in London, to reply

B: No, he was in a blacked-out city.

"B could have said that Smith was in *London*,

thereby providing a further piece of information.”

“However, I should like to be able to argue that, in preferring the conversational move featuring the indefinite descriptor, ‘a blacked-out city' B implicates (or communicates the implicaturum) (by the maxims

prescribing relation and redundancy avoidance) a more

appropriate piece of information, viz., why_ Smith was prevented from seeing the ‘show’ on the bobby box.”

"B could have provided BOTH pieces of

information, in an over-prolixic version of the above:

‘Smith was in London , which, as every schoolboy knows, was blacked-out yesterday.”

— thereby insulting A.

But THE ***GAIN****, as Bentham would put it, would have been **INSUFFICIENT** to **JUSTIFY** the additional conversational **COST**.”

“Or so I think.”