Okay. I’m not sure my friends or circles have the same default assumptions about the violence level of the kind of punch someone promises to give a friend if said friend does something stupid.
It may also be worth noting, and omitting this may have been a mistake on my part, that I’m referring especially to intentional subtext (which is the only definition I was using “subtext” for). Things like “This guy probably had trouble with people misinterpreting his intentions due to bad phrasing before” are true, are easily inferred from the grandparent’s words, and aren’t part of the communication—they are inferences based on the evidence presented (the fact that I pinpoint that to talk about in the first place instead of any of the million other things I could talk about).
Some seem to be counting this “inference based on what the other said” as direct subtext in all cases. Is there permanently the subtext “I am a human and I will not catch on fire in the next [0..inf] seconds and I will not eat a train and I will not eat a bear and I will not [...]” in every single sentence I say, just because of the way I say it and it is true that these things can be inferred (trivially) from the conversation?
So the inclusion of every little unintentional, collateral, inferable (?) detail as “subtext” kind of baffles me.
The technique in the grandparent successfully, in all cases I’ve tried, prevents all the instances and sorts of misunderstandings generally attributable to someone reading from “subtext” some sort of “reason”, “motive” or “intention” in my words or behavior that was not there, in fact and in hindsight.
So no, I don’t want them to pretend not to notice subtexts. I want them to stop assuming that there is a subtext!Motive/HiddenIntent. Of course if they entirely mistrusts the words in the grandparent, this will not work. That’s why I don’t even try on people who don’t trust me.
Okay. I’m not sure my friends or circles have the same default assumptions about the violence level of the kind of punch someone promises to give a friend if said friend does something stupid.
It’s almost as if your friends are able to read subtext and infer what you actually mean rather than take your explicit threat of assault literally. That sounds like a terribly useful and generally applicable social skill for them to have that has the potential to greatly simplify their social experience.
So wedrifid!”read_subtext” == Make any inference on the specific intended communicative meaning of a Label (AKA “word”) when the specific real-world meaning of the label or sentence is ambiguous or unspecified
Oh wow, it’s almost like I wedrifid!”read_subtext” on the comment you just made!
Thanks for arguing about definitions without mentioning my point.
In order to distinguish intentional subtext from subtext, the listener has to make a very fine judgement about your intent. That is a very noisy thing to communicate.
I’m not sure intimidating people with threats of violence to make them pretend not to notice a subtext is actually a “loophole” as such.
Okay. I’m not sure my friends or circles have the same default assumptions about the violence level of the kind of punch someone promises to give a friend if said friend does something stupid.
It may also be worth noting, and omitting this may have been a mistake on my part, that I’m referring especially to intentional subtext (which is the only definition I was using “subtext” for). Things like “This guy probably had trouble with people misinterpreting his intentions due to bad phrasing before” are true, are easily inferred from the grandparent’s words, and aren’t part of the communication—they are inferences based on the evidence presented (the fact that I pinpoint that to talk about in the first place instead of any of the million other things I could talk about).
Some seem to be counting this “inference based on what the other said” as direct subtext in all cases. Is there permanently the subtext “I am a human and I will not catch on fire in the next [0..inf] seconds and I will not eat a train and I will not eat a bear and I will not [...]” in every single sentence I say, just because of the way I say it and it is true that these things can be inferred (trivially) from the conversation?
So the inclusion of every little unintentional, collateral, inferable (?) detail as “subtext” kind of baffles me.
The technique in the grandparent successfully, in all cases I’ve tried, prevents all the instances and sorts of misunderstandings generally attributable to someone reading from “subtext” some sort of “reason”, “motive” or “intention” in my words or behavior that was not there, in fact and in hindsight.
So no, I don’t want them to pretend not to notice subtexts. I want them to stop assuming that there is a subtext!Motive/HiddenIntent. Of course if they entirely mistrusts the words in the grandparent, this will not work. That’s why I don’t even try on people who don’t trust me.
It’s almost as if your friends are able to read subtext and infer what you actually mean rather than take your explicit threat of assault literally. That sounds like a terribly useful and generally applicable social skill for them to have that has the potential to greatly simplify their social experience.
So wedrifid!”read_subtext” == Make any inference on the specific intended communicative meaning of a Label (AKA “word”) when the specific real-world meaning of the label or sentence is ambiguous or unspecified
Oh wow, it’s almost like I wedrifid!”read_subtext” on the comment you just made!
Thanks for arguing about definitions without mentioning my point.
In order to distinguish intentional subtext from subtext, the listener has to make a very fine judgement about your intent. That is a very noisy thing to communicate.