Companion to J.L. Austin, Part III: How To Do Things With Words

J.L. Austin’s How To Do Things With Words

Chapters 1-6

p. 4: parti pris, French, meaning “side taken”; biased

p.8: totalisator, horse racing, bet taking machine

p. 16: purser, a person on a ship responsible for all papers and accounts

p. 17: “Because, despite the name, you do not when bigamous marry twice. (In short the algebra of marriage is BOOLEAN.)” MK’s tentative suggestion, via email: “Boole used exclusive, rather than inclusive, disjunction as his primitive logical addition. Maybe the idea is: a bigamist is either married to wife A or to wife B, but not both.”

p. 25: to crack the crib of reality, Victorian slang for breaking into a house (see also p. 241, “Performative Utterances”)

p. 34: ultra vires, beyond, in excess of one’s legal powers

p. 36: consensus ad idem, "Contract law is based on several Latin legal principles, the most important of which is consensus ad idem, which means a meeting of the minds between the parties or, in other words, a clear understanding, offering and acceptance of each person's contribution. Lawyers say that it is from the moment of "consensus ad idem" that a contract is formed and may be enforced by the courts" (from http://www.duhaime.org/contract/default.aspx)

p. 69: pro tanto, to that extent

p. 81: "‘Snap’. To say this is to snap (in appropriate circumstances); but it is not a snap if ‘snap’ is not said”. “Snap” is a card game: "The whole deck of cards is dealt out to the players who pick up their cards and hold them face down in their hands. Looking at the faces of the cards is not allowed.Starting with the dealer, each player deals one card face up in the centre of the table, making a pile of cards.This is continued until one player deals one card on top of another player's card, which is of the same color and value, e.g. two black sevens. When this happens the first player to call out 'Snap' wins” (from http://www.4to40.com/games/4fun/index.asp?article=games_4fun_snap).

p. 82: J’adoube, “I adjust”, called out when adjusting a piece in chess: "the phrase is used when the player on the move wants to touch a piece without being required to move it by the 'touch move' rule. It must be spoken before the player touches the piece to be adjusted. The player who is not on the move is not required to say anything before touching a piece. It is, however, considered bad form if you touch a piece when it is not your turn to move" (from http://chess.about.com/cs/reference/g/bldefjad.htm).

Links to other posts on Austin: "Truth", "Performative Utterances", and "Other Minds".