"Federal judge says 'Blank you!' to the people of Nebraska" (Fox News, The O'Reilly Factor 13.05)
Assuming no further co-text is provided, is there a generalized
inference rule guiding hearers to construct the one strong
explicature in the above example (it appears that only one such explicature
will be derived here, even though the "blank" could potentially be
pragmatically enriched ad infinitum, e.g. Thank you!, Mind you!,
Love you!, See you!, Miss you! etc.)?
What kind of encyclopedic knowledge/background information will
hearers use in deriving the one explicature: relevant or salient
(foremost on their minds), since the dysphemism underlying the phrase
is NOT what judges are normally taken to say, unlike such conventionalized
sequences as:
- Blank blank blank reached the verdict?
- We have, your Honor.
- Blank blank you?
Appreciate your comments!
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