The more threatened and defensive someone is, the more they are likely to be vigilant for any possible negative implication. As an old joke goes, one person says, "Good morning," and the other says to himself, "Hmm, I wonder what he meant by that?" When someone frequently attends to negative implications in a wide range of contexts, we describe them as "paranoid." It seems likely that someone would learn to do this in a context in which family members used a lot of negative implication instead of direct communication about important issues, with severe punishment for not making the correct inferences.
Of course, sometimes it is very important to attend to the implication of an event, because even a very small event may have a very important meaning. A friend of mine found books of matches around the house from places he had never been. This puzzled him, but he didn't think too much about it. About a year later, he found out that his wife had been having a series of affairs, bringing back matches from different bars and restaurants where she had met her lovers.
However, there might have been some other completely innocent meaning for the strange matches. They could have been a casual gift from a friend who was clearing out her kitchen cupboard. "Here, can you use these matches?" In that case, if my friend had thought of threatening implications, that would have been an imaginary meaning that would have caused unnecessary unhappiness.
Often we find implications on our own, but sometimes others invite us to do it. "It's interesting that you would say that," is a vague implication that the speaker is putting the statement into a larger category, and the listener is likely to search for what it is. Depending on the facial expression and tone of voice, this ambiguous communication could be a criticism, a compliment, an accusation, a sexual invitation, or any number of other possible communications. The absence of communication, particularly when someone is expecting it, is even more ambiguous and fertile in possible implications. What does that silence mean?
So while implication can be a very graceful and respectful way to communicate, it can also be a source of serious miscommunication, disguising accusations, blame, and all sorts of other destructive messages. Like all patterns of communication, implication can be used in negative ways or positive ways. When we understand how they work, we can avoid a lot of misunderstanding and unhappiness. There are several kinds of implication, and each is somewhat different.
Verbal Implication
Unconsciously thinking of the world as being divided into two (or occasionally 3 or more) exclusive categories is an essential ingredient of most verbal implication, and often this digital dichotomy is created by negation. "I am not a young man" is usually understood to mean, "I am an old man." "He's no Einstein" implies the opposite. "That's not her heart she's wearing on her sleeve" implies that some other part of her body is.
Implications often occur in the form of questions. "Is the door open" implies that the speaker would like it closed. A literal answer to, "Can you answer the phone?" is "Yes," but most people understand that this question is an implied request to answer the phone. If someone does answer with a literal response, "Yes," and makes no move toward the phone, it is usually understood to be a "smart aleck" remark! (And the implication of making a smart aleck remark is usually disrespect, superiority, or condescension.) In the past this kind of question has been called a "conversational postulate," but more recently some have called it a "conversational implication."
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