Two other countries separated by a common language

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

I agree  Surely the Gricean principles are not limited to the USA.

In a parallel instance of pragmatic uncooperativeness:

Salesman: Hi! I'm Willy Lowman and I am selling shoes. .
Resistant, sarcastic stranger: I.m not.

Perhaps "Can you use" is an American idiom not used elsewhere (perhaps not). But it seems to me that most of the examples of "miscommunication" offered in this thread are no more than amusing examples
of nerdiness, sarcasm, insufficient context, or in attention.

------Original Message------
From: Mark Sacks
Sender: American Dialect Society
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
ReplyTo: American Dialect Society
Sent: Oct 1, 2007 9:06 AM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Two other countries separated by a common language

I don't think this is American-vs-Australian confusion. The answerer could
simply have been a nerd.

I long time ago I was running a folk-dance party in a dorm hall at MIT. In
the late afternoon, I noticed it was getting dark and asked a math major
who knew the facility where the lights were. He immediately pointed to the
ceiling; and no, he was not being deliberately funny.

Marc Sacks
msacks at theworld.com

The question,
>
> "Can you use one of these?" ["Would you like to have one of these?"] in
> American
>
> was re-interpreted as:
>
> "Do you have the ability to use of one of these?" in Australian.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org