Tony Cooper
On 3 May 2014 14:50:59 GMT, Sandman <mr@sandman.net>wrote:

Sandman
In article <0ja8m9tjhiuhh1i82hikg5va6m807uespt@4ax.com>, Eric Stevens wrote:

An implication can never be unintended. You can infer what you THOUGHT was an implication, but only the speaker/writer can know if it actually was an implication.

Eric Stevens
Not so. The reader gathers the implication from the words. He can have no knowledge of what the writer actually had in mind when he wrote them.

Sandman
That's called "inference". Where the reader infers meaning from the writer's words that aren't explicitly written.

What sometimes is called "unintended implication" is when a statement by someone has an obvious inference that the writer didn't think of. When a car ad says "New and improved", it's sometimes called an "unintended implication" that the old model was old and lousy.

Tony Cooper
And you are arguing elsewhere that there is no such thing as an unintended inference.