Implicature

Okay, so let's pretend you're talking to a friend and they ask you if you want to come over and play. You might say "I can't, I have chores to do" even though you don't really have any chores to do. This means that you are implying something without actually saying it. This is called implicature.

It's like playing a game of "guess what I'm thinking". You use your words in a special way so that your friend can understand what you really mean, even though you didn't say it outright. You might do this because you don't want to hurt someone's feelings, or you want to be polite.

For example, if someone asks you how they look in a new outfit and you don't like it, instead of saying "that looks ugly on you", you might say "that's an interesting choice of color" which means the same thing, but without being mean.

Implicature helps us communicate with each other in a nicer way, and it's like a secret code that we use in our everyday conversations.