Herbert Paul Grice and John Ashberry

Speranza

Asked by an interviewer for NPR whether his poems were “accessible,” poet John Ashberry responds, 

“Well, I’m told that they are not.”

This should remind a Griceian of "Grice without an audience". Or not! 

Perhaps it should remind McEvoy of Popper.

And it may remind L. Helm of something else.

Let's analyse the implicatures of Ashberry's utterance:

i. A: Do you think your poems are accessible?

   B: Excuse me for the Griceianism, but what do you _mean_?

   A: You mean, what do I mean by 'accessible'?

   B: Correct. You mean 'accessible to a Griceian addressee'?

   A: Well, there are Popperian alternatives to this or that jargon, but I'll grant you that might be what I _implicated_, yes.

   B: Well, I am told -- by my mother -- that they are not -- to her, if you must explicate!