I Am Not Going To Give This Thread A Title

[Giles]

@Koxinga

I know a joke. Somebody say, “knock knock.”

I know that joke too.

[Czarcasm]

@Strain_of_Thought

Yeah, it wasn’t the best choice as a demonstration. “This Thread Has No Title” would have been better.

Still not a paradox-merely an untruth.

[rjk]

@Giles

The object labelled “This is not a pipe” is, in fact, not a pipe: it is a picture of a pipe.

Yes, in the real world it’s a picture of a pipe. But the message is also inside the picture, and in that universe the object in question really is a pipe.

But not a penis.

[minlokwat]

I suppose the appropriate audio clip would be Elton’s:

This Song Has No Title

[Koxinga]

If I asked your neighbor here what your answer would be, what would he say?

[Contrapuntal]

@Koxinga

If I asked your neighbor here what your answer would be, what would he say?

Whatever he says, do the opposite.

[Johanna]

I was going to tell you about paralipsis, but changed my mind.

[Steve_MB]

Allow me to clarify:

@Lewis Carroll

“You are sad.” the Knight said in an anxious tone: “let me sing you a song to comfort you.”
“Is it very long?” Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
“It’s long.” said the Knight, “but it’s very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it - either it brings tears to their eyes, or else -”
“Or else what?” said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
“Or else it doesn’t, you know. The name of the song is called ‘Haddocks’ Eyes.’”
“Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?” Alice said, trying to feel interested.
“No, you don’t understand,” the Knight said, looking a little vexed. “That’s what the name is called. The name really is ‘The Aged, Aged Man.’”
“Then I ought to have said ‘That’s what the song is called’?” Alice corrected herself.
“No you oughtn’t: that’s another thing. The song is called ‘Ways and Means’ but that’s only what it’s called, you know!”
“Well, what is the song then?” said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
“I was coming to that,” the Knight said. “The song really is ‘A-sitting On a Gate’: and the tune’s my own invention.”

[Weedy]

@SciFiSam

Oxymoron? Contradiction in terms?

I have read, I don’t know where, that ‘this is not a pipe’ was not just being cleverly funny because it clearly was a pipe, but also childishly funny because pipe is or was a common term for the penis. Maybe French-speaking dopers can confirm if this is true?

The term for statements such as ‘I now pronounce you man and wife’ is not just declarative, because that’s a much broader term - ‘I’m going to post this in a minute’ is a declarative statement. ‘I now pronounce you man and wife’ actually makes that happen - it changes things merely by the matter of being said - depending on the laws where you live, and it has a special name all of its own, but it’s hidden in the back of my brain and won’t come out to play.

Performatives.

[SciFiSam]

@Weedy

Performatives.

Thanks - I knew it was something like that, but you know when you just have a mental block on some piece of information for some reason?

In that case, I think the term the OP was looking for is performative contradiction, whose meaning is fairly obvious, but I can’t find a really good online cite.