H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA: LA CONVERSAZIONE -- I VERBALI: PANEBIANCO

 G.: The Accademia dei Lincei meets annually, very solemnly, under the sign of the lynx. S.: Yes, and Rome manages it without the animals attending. G.: Which already answers your zoological objection to London. S.: Not entirely. Why should London fail where Rome succeeds? G.: Three reasons, if you insist on classification: philosophical, urban, zoological. S.: Begin with the philosophical. You always prefer that. G.: London distrusts essences. “Lynx” there is either a zoological specimen or a metaphor for acuity. Rome permits a third: an emblem. S.: So “lynx” in Rome is not merely a noun but a program. G.: Precisely. A nomen substantivum elevated into a badge of intellectual virtue. One sees sharply, therefore one is a linceo. S.: Whereas in London one would be accused of category-mistake. G.: Or worse, of affectation. S.: So the philosophical reason is that London refuses to let a term migrate from zoology to epistemology. G.: Without protest, yes. It demands an argument; Rome accepts a suggestion. S.: An implicature, if you like. G.: Quite. “We are lynxes” implicates perceptiveness without asserting it. London would ask for evidence of eyesight. S.: And probably a letter from an ophthalmologist. G.: Or from the Royal Society. S.: Which is not, I note, the Royal Society of Owls. G.: Though it might have been. S.: Very well. The urban reason. G.: Rome is theatrical. It tolerates, even encourages, titles that carry a certain grandeur. S.: “Accademia dei Lincei” sounds like a procession. G.: Exactly. London prefers understatement. “Society” will do. “Club,” even better. S.: “Association of Persons Who Occasionally See Rather Well.” G.: You mock, but that is the English instinct. S.: So London cannot sustain a collectivity of animals because it cannot sustain the name. G.: It would rename it into oblivion. S.: And then forget why it existed. G.: Quite. S.: And the zoological reason. G.: No lynxes. S.: That seems decisive. G.: Rome had them symbolically; London would require them empirically. S.: And failing to produce one in Bloomsbury, the project collapses. G.: Quite. A tiger might be arranged, but a lynx is another matter. S.: “He is a tiger” works well enough in English. G.: Yes, but it is a rather blunt metaphor. S.: You prefer “You are the cream in my coffee.” G.: It has a certain domestic precision. S.: But “He is a lynx” would be intolerable in London. G.: Unless one were speaking of eyesight. S.: Or of a suspiciously observant don. G.: Even then, it would be taken as wit, not as institutional identity. S.: Whereas in Rome it becomes the foundation of an academy. G.: Exactly. The metaphor hardens into a title. S.: A non-detachable implicature. G.: Well said. One cannot paraphrase “linceo” without losing the suggestion of sharpness. S.: So the lynx becomes a fixed sign. G.: And the academy a collectivity not of animals, but of those who wish to be taken as such. S.: London refuses the wish. G.: It insists on the fact. S.: Which is rarely flattering. G.: Quite. S.: But suppose, for argument’s sake, that someone in London declared himself a lynx. G.: He would be invited to dinner and gently corrected. S.: “You mean observant.” G.: Or “you mean you wear spectacles.” S.: So the metaphor is immediately dissolved. G.: Into prose. S.: Whereas in Rome it is preserved. G.: In marble, if possible. S.: So Panebianco’s engineering of language would not help. G.: On the contrary, it would make matters worse. S.: Because he would insist on a single, literal meaning of “lynx.” G.: Exactly. A grammarless clarity that abolishes the emblem. S.: And with it the academy. G.: Yes. The code would be too clean for the institution. S.: So the Lincei depend on ambiguity. G.: On controlled ambiguity. S.: The kind you admire. G.: The kind I analyse. S.: Then “lynx” has more than one sense. G.: In Rome, yes. In London, no. S.: But strictly speaking, the noun has one zoological sense. G.: And several derived uses. S.: Which you would call implicatures. G.: Or metaphorical extensions. S.: So “lynx” as “sharp-sighted person” is an implicature. G.: A conventionalised one. S.: And “Accademia dei Lincei” institutionalises it. G.: Precisely. S.: London refuses to institutionalise implicature. G.: It prefers explicitness. S.: Which is fatal to charm. G.: And to academies of animals. S.: So the failure is not zoological but linguistic. G.: Linguistic and philosophical. S.: And urban. G.: All three, as promised. S.: I begin to see the point. G.: Then you are already halfway to being a lynx. S.: In Rome. G.: Not in London. S.: In London I should be corrected. G.: Immediately. S.: And possibly taxed. G.: Certainly taxed. S.: Then perhaps the English have their own academy of animals. G.: They do. S.: What is it called. G.: The Cabinet. S.: That is unfair. G.: It is also zoological. S.: And metaphorical. G.: And not, I think, annual in the Roman sense. S.: So we end where we began: Rome sustains the fiction. G.: London dissolves it. S.: And the lynx survives only where it is not required to appear. G.: A most elegant solution. S.: One might almost found an academy on it. G.: In Rome. S.: Never in London.