Here's a message I almost sent to someone:

(Worrying about) implicatures makes writing about a kazillion times harder than it would be otherwise. E.g. - I must think there is something that needs to be communicated if I send this to you. What could it be? I have no clue. But if I send it, there's gotta be a reason - 'gotta' in the normative sense - I *can* send it without a reason, but then I'd be guilty of violating the conversational imperative or something. Otherwise, I'd be no different than someone who repeats himself endlessly. Believe it or not, I actually try to follow conversational norms.

But even if I say I don't have a reason, because of the principle of charity, or some such thing, you gotta try to figure out what my reason could be. Not that you actually will. Which means you're gonna flout the conversational imperative too!

But if you did try, you might come to some horrible conclusion, e.g. that I was trying to communicate that there was nothing to communicate. What a disaster!

But mustn't there be a reason for me to send this to you rather than to someone else? Must be that I want to say something to you without actually having anything to communicate. Or I could be acting completely randomly.   ¶ 12:37 AM