Expanding family

In the middle of an ESSLLI lecture I got an sms from my girlfriend: “We are having a baby! Wheeeee!”

At such moments it’s helpful to be a pragmatician.¹ My reasoning pattern went something like this, where steps 5 and 6 exemplify the pragmatician’s approach to meaning (approximate processing times given in parentheses):

Aaaaaaaaargh! (17s)
It’s not possible! We’ve been careful haven’t we?! (7s)
Whatever will my mother say? (1.3s)
Wait a second… (1s)
If she meant “We’re having a baby”, wouldn’t she have called to tell me so? (3s)
So she can’t actually have meant “We’re having a baby”… (1.7s)
So she must have meant instead…

She bought me a baglama.

Tikitu and Marama welcome Takis to the family.

And Tikitu apologises to his mother, if she had a heart attack reading this.

Notes:

Okay, the accepted term is ‘pragmaticist’. Just don’t confuse it with ‘pragmatist’. [↪]

Comments

Sep 18, 2007 at 14:09 • tikitu

Whee, postcards!

Sep 18, 2007 at 15:09 • Takis

Whee, postcards! (*twang*)

Sep 18, 2007 at 14:09 • Elizabeth

In that case I shall send postcards to you ALL, hoorah!

Aug 27, 2007 at 14:08 • Olga

You don't have to! We already have one ... in Greece. The instrument I got from Turkey is a saz (or Turkish BaÄŸlama). I already told you, remember? So you should just buy a ticket to Greece and you'll have the chance to have one saz at your place for free :-) But if you just read how it is constructed, you'll understand that it can't have the same sound as the Greek bouzouki.

Aug 27, 2007 at 13:08 • tikitu

Oh! I must admit I assumed that it sounded like a bouzouki, since it looks so similar. Silly me... Palm Guitars have a few, perhaps I should go by and try one out to see what it *really* sounds like.

Aug 27, 2007 at 12:08 • Olga

Just a very short comment: You write at some point that the Turkish BaÄŸlama is much more similar to a Greek bouzouki than to a Greek baglama. Not true. The Turkish BaÄŸlama is not similar to a Greek buzuki (or to a Greek baglama) at all! Only dimensionwise maybe, but still their actual shape and construction is much different and their sound as well. Maybe you already know that, but it is not clear by the way you put it (in any case, I think you must admit that the mother may sometimes know better the differences between her children ;-)). Baglamas on the other hand is a buzuki, only a shrunken one. And: I hope you are going to be a responsible father. Congratulations!