[Kaimetsu]

Originally posted by Tyhm
But this implied meaning is subject to interpretation.

Of course it is, but only because we don't have access to the mind of the person who implied it. There is a correct meaning, and it's not defined by us.

In fact that's a contradiction in terms, practically (but not quite on a technicality) an oxy***** - you can't explicitly imply, which is to say something implicitly.

I'm not saying otherwise. I'm not saying that an implication can only be interpreted a single way or that any given action has a meaning baked into it. I'm saying that if somebody makes an intentional implication then there exists a correct way of interpreting that, even if the original implication was sloppy and tenuous.

So it boils down to: Did most people infer the same thing? In that case, something was certainly implied, whether it was intended or not.

Well, now we're talking about different things. Since the situation is this case revolves around an intentional implication, I'm limiting my side of the debate to that.

If I mention that I'm getting hungry then I am implying that we find a donut shop. That's absolute fact; in line with the dictionary definition, I 'expressed or indicated indirectly'. It's something that I did, with a clear and immutable meaning in my mind. If you did a little poll then maybe 100% of three hundred thousand people would decide that I was actually implying that I am about to die of starvation, and want to get to a lawyer so I can compose my will. That doesn't mean I was implying any such thing, it just means that the voters were wrong.

So, words and actions have ambiguous meanings, but people do not. There's no way for a single person to definitively identify a sentence's implied meanings but he can guess and strike upon a person's intentions in using that sentence. In the case of people, it's not a 'majority rules' situation. The people who best understand the language and the speaker have the best chance of identifying the correct meaning, but even the flip of a coin can lead to success.