Hiding in the open

People rely on implicatures all the time to communicate their ideas.  An implicature happens when someone says something that is obvious or that seems odd for someone to say aloud rather than merely thinking it or that seems astray from the topic at hand.  When that happens, the meaning of the utterance is implied, and many times it is sarcastic or denigrating in some way.

An example of an implicature is something like the following.  Two people are talking.  A third person walks in.  The person talking says to the third person, "Please give us a moment."  The third person knows that it is implied that he should leave the two people he tried to join alone to finish their conversation.  Another example is when you are talking to a friend who knows you, and you say, "I'm going to visit my mother this weekend, but I'm going to leave on Saturday night."  Your friend replies, "Yeah, I don't blame you."  The answer seems like a non sequitur. Why is leaving Saturday a good idea?  The friend knows that the mother goes to church every Sunday, the daughter doesn't go, and the whole issue is uncomfortable because the mother is so judgmental of her daughter's absence from church on Sunday.  By not being with the mother on Sunday, the issue doesn't arise.  But, all of that information is implied between friends who know each other.

Sometimes implicatures are called inside jokes or friendly banters.  Innuendo is another popular word for implicature.  Whatever it's called, it's part of the communication system we have developed, and we all use it pretty well.  Mostly implicatures are hurtful to someone in some way or another.  Comedians use it for laughter, but still the implied information is hurtful.  It's just that it is better to laugh so you don't cry when it comes to some things.