Grice on Katz's "Halitosis"

Thanks to L. M. Tapper for the gem. Indeed, Katz, who is of New Jersey, was perhaps too optimistic in taking the 'null-context' of the anonymous letter too seriously.

Halitare, in Latin, is to breathe. I learned all about it from Episode iii of Dennis Potter's Pennies from Haven.

Gemma Craven plays this wonderful working-class (not so working, but you know what I mean) lady in the BBC serial. Nigel Havers knocks on the door for a halitosis treatment, or perhaps she is reading about it in a magazine. I have the script of the thing as published by Kenith (sic) Trodd. Genii.

Anyway, to breathe, halitare, is all it means. Cf. halitus. -Osis fails, in my view, to bring in the implicature of BAD breath, though:

-osis:
suff.
Condition; process; action: osmosis.
Diseased or abnormal condition: neurosis.
Increase; formation: leukocytosis.
[Latin -ōsis, from Greek, n. suff.]

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Etc.