"Police search for gunman in fatal South Park slaying": A Gricean outlook

From Quinion, World Wide Words:

"Robert Nathan e-mailed, "These fatal slayings are the very worst
kind." He had seen a sad story in the Daily News Wire Services over
a headline which appeared in numerous American newspapers: "Police
search for gunman in fatal South Park slaying"."

----

Gricean rationale:

i. Do not be more informative than is required:

'fatal slaying': overinformative.

Problem with this approach: 'fatal slaying' is NOT overinformative: it is stupid.

ii. There is no Gricean maxim, 'avoid redundancy'.

iii. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).

'fatal slaying' infringes this. Again, as per, i., Rather than long, it is Stupid.

----

Gricean outlook. Kramer has mentioned this Japanese mania of having the worst headlines. What we do at the GC it to provide a rationale.

--- Etymologial fallacy:

Quinion and Robert Nathan should know that 'fatum' ('fate') has NOTHING to do with 'death'.

"Police search for gunman in fatal South Park slaying".

Where _is_ South Park?

Did they find him?

How do they know it was a male? (Could it not have been a transgender: Here is where we DO need 'positive discrimination' or 'affirmation'.

fatal NN slaying

is different from (or 'then' as my friend writes -- Jack his name):

'fatal slaying'.

The fact that a PARK and a South(ern) one is interpolated between the slaying and fate makes for all the difference:

----

Incidentally, 'fatum' relates to Kramer on 'evolutionary necessity'. How necessary can be evolution? (He can expand, perhaps in different header. Grice loved TALK of necessity). Personally, I think evolution is CONTINGENT, rather than necessary.

But back to the gunman:

"Police search gunman IN fatal South Park slaying"

What was fatal?

I submit that the writer -- perhaps a Buddhist? -- was thinking that while the slaying was fatal (i.e. it had to be - cfr. "It ain't necessarily so", in Porgy and Bess), it may be not fatal that the police search will arrive at a good end for the police (surely not a good end for the gunman).

Strawson was obsessed with that. In Grice's favourite essay -- Strawson's Freedom and Resentment -- Strawson writes of 'fate':

"'fate' is the least of the philosophical notions, or, rather, it is the least philosophical of the notions. Philosophers don't believe in 'fate'".

A fatal slaying?

A fated slaying.

The problem is Greek. The Greeks called "Fate", "Moira". The fates were the Wyrd sisters of pre-destination.

"He was fated to die".

'fated' is perhaps better than 'fatal'. There's also fatuous.

'fatal' slaying also involves a Humean Projection. What was that made the slaying a 'fatal' one?

The idea is that the gunman shot his gun. The bullet hit the victim. The slaying, i.e. the gunman's slaying of the 'victim' -- a fatal victim, as it transpired -- was the predetermined condition for the victim ceasing to exist.

The legality of the proceedings ensued that the police is now searching for the gunman. South Park is a notorious dangerous site. Where is it?

What slaying is not fatal.

For a libertarian who does NOT believe in 'fate':

"Police search gunman in South Park slaying" will just do. But to suppose that the redundancy is non-Griceist is non-Griceist. Etc.