"I never said she ate my sandwich" has seven meanings depending on which word you stress

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I never said this was true of most sentences.

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What question are you answering?

Who never said that she at their sandwich?
When did you say that she ate your sandwich?
In what way did you never communicate that she ate your sandwich?
Who did you never say ate your sandwich?
What did you say that she never did to your sandwich?
Whose sandwich did never say she ate?
What did you never say that she ate?

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Why would anyone ask for a document from someone who orks cows? No wonder they resented being asked!

Resent / re-sent

Coworker / cow-orker

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This is so very very true. And it’s especially true if you are trying to convey sarcasm or even Happy Mutant’s quintessential “snark.” Don’t assume folks will infer the same meaning from what you’ve written, and, perhaps more importantly, don’t get upset when it happens, because it will. Use it as an opportunity to clarify, not to chastize the reader.

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Debated here:

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Art imitating life?

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Which two would that be? Literally every different emphasis changes the meaning from my perspective.

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“I never said she ate my sandwich”
“I never said she ate my sandwich”

Samsam disagrees:

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Without emphasis, the sentence means, “I never said she ate my sandwich.”

The emphasis contains additional meaning not given in the sentence itself:

“[sentence] – someone else said it.”
“[sentence] – the supposed utterance did not in fact happen at all.”
“[sentence] – in fact, I relayed the sentiment via text message.”
“[sentence] – I said her brother did it!”
“[sentence] – she threw it in the trash.”
“[sentence] – the sandwich-deprived person was Ratel.”
“[sentence] – but she did eat my chips.”

Now the enhanced sentences, even without emphasis, match the various emphasized versions in meaning.

There’s a word for this gap (what’s conveyed in the words alone vs what’s conveyed with intonation and the like) in linguistics, but I’m having trouble summoning it.

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When I call the kids downstairs to have dinner, I intentionally leave off the verbal comma in “Let’s eat, people!”

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Forgive me, all, if this has been posted here before. I can’t remember where I found it.
9tmqyw

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Found years ago on, I think, the Home Depot site:image

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Very disappointed. I was expecting something more obscene.

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That’s all very well but what became of my lunch?

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image

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You are probably looking for “pragmatics”.

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That one means that the other person said “What?” the other eight times you said it.

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That reminds me of a skit I saw once where this guy walks into a store with a phrase book and repeats the same phrase over and over again with different intonations.
The exasperated storekeeper says “You finish”? and was answered “No I’m Danish”.

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