Philosophical logicians and philosophers of language will be interested to learn that the New York Times has isolated and has begun to use a hitherto unknown logical relation : the "heavy" implication. A speaker S heavily implies that p when S states that p. An example of a heavy implicature occurs in today's (Feb. 16) New York Times ("Silence Broken as Cheney Points Only to Himself"):
Until Mr. Cheney acknowledged having had a beer at lunch, members of the hunting party had been adamant that no alcohol was involved. Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the ranch, had said in interviews that Dr Pepper was served at lunch and that no one was drinking. In interviews with The Times and other papers, Ms. Armstrong heavily implied that no alcohol was served at all.
"No, zero, zippo, and I don't drink at all," she said in an interview published on Monday in The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, the paper she initially called. "No one was drinking."
Goes well with Journalism Lite.
Recent Comments