Implicatum vs. Implicature: Why the Processology Doesn't Matter

by J. L. Speranza, Esq.
for the Grice Club.

From Quinion's today's "World Wide Words"

"YET ANOTHER OLOGY A couple of newspaper reports this week quoted
British government ministers uttering the word PROCESSOLOGY. They
used it in derisive terms for journalists who, in the opinion of
the speakers, devote more time to studying the way decisions are
arrived at than in reporting the decisions themselves. Tony Blair's
former official spokesman, Godric Smith, has been credited with
introducing it into British political jargon soon after he was
appointed in June 2001, though it has also been linked to his
predecessor, Alastair Campbell."

--- In a way it connects with Grice's obsessive emphasis on distinguishing the 'implicature' (Latin 'implicatura'), the 'implying' -- from the 'implicatum' (what is implied).

I tend to recognise a philosopher from other animals by the former's total disrespect for the processology. On the other hand, non-philosophers are forever worried with the 'processology' (real-time psycholinguistically real, in their jargon) working out of an 'implicatum'. As if it mattered!

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