Semantics “You’ll never believe this!” Alex said, excited. “I don’t believe it,” said Jack “...ah, what...?” Alex said, thrown off guard. “I don’t believe it.” “You don’t know what I was going to say yet.” “I wanted to save you the trouble of saying it.” “Huh?” “Well, if I wasn’t going to believe it anyway, why should you say it at all? And if you were trying to make me believe it, you wouldn’t have told me you already knew I wouldn’t believe it.” “That’s not how it works,” said Alex. “What?” “That’s not how it works. First I have something to tell you that’s really weird. Then because it’s weird I say ‘you’ll never believe it,’ which just sets you up to hear something that’s weird. It’s just a thing to say in that circumstance. I’m not really saying you’ll never believe it, I’m saying this is so weird you will be amazed.” “Oh, I didn’t know that. I wondered why people said that so often. Why don’t you just say I’m going to tell you something that’s weird? “I don’t know, I didn’t invent English.” “Oh, ok. So what is this thing that I will believe that’s so weird?” “Oh crap!” “I don’t get it... crap is weird?” “No, now I can’t remember what I was going to tell you when I said you’ll never believe this...” “Well, I can believe that.” |