It was a lovely day in January (or so phatic claimed) at most everyone minded theirs own business.
"Did you know Bowie passed?" Suit asked.
"The test?" phatic torted.
"That joke was crueal and insesitive," Suit responded.
"Yes, sorry," phatic said.
Then Suit started lecturic phatic on lying and its definition.
"Do," phatic said, paying attention (seemingly).
"To qualify as having lied, one must (1) have made a statement that is (2) not true (3) to someone (4) that you're trying to fool," Suit said.
"So if I'm just pretending to pay attention...?"
"Yes?"
"I haven't lied?"
"Would you say that putting on a show is excempted from the notion of 'making a statement'?" Suit answered (with a question, flaunting one of the more or less unspoken imperatives.
"But what is a statement?" phatic inquired.
"A statement is when x utters the expression E with the intention of causing y to believe that x intended to utter E as an expression of the proposition p, which would be a standard use of E in their language," Suit said.
"So it would be sufficient for someone not to be lying if he were to tell his friend it was raining so long as his intention was to get his friend to believe that the utterer thought it was raining?" phatic said (cleverly).
"Eh... yes?" Suit said.
"He wouldn't have to KNOW it was raining?" phatic said driving the point home.
"No, it would be sufficient that he bleieved it was raining at that THAT was what he intended his friend to believe," Suit explained patiently.
"WHat if he knew it was raining but didn't believe it?" phatic said non-deceptively.
"Now you're moorish," Suit exclaimed.
"Well, what would be the non-deceptive statement to make? 'I believe it's not raining [but it is]' or 'It's raining' even though the utterer didn't actually believe it?"
"Well, you're clearly comfy on the moors, rain or not. How did you come up with that stoopid title of this post, anyways?" Suit said as a way to try to get phatic to believe (rightly) that he (Suit) was trying to get him (the writer of this irritating post) to STOP WRITING!
"It's named after a famous case study by Freud -- on a patient who thought he had rats up his backside -- and NOT Primoratz, who made the definition of lying," the writer wrote.
