Steven Pinker

like eye contact, where you're looking at the part of the person that's looking at the part of you that's looking at that part of them.

Or blushing, where you feel the heat of the reddening of your cheeks from the inside, knowing that other people can see it from the outside.

Or laughter, where an unignorable noise can expose the common assumptions among everyone who gets the joke.

Conversely, when we worry about upending a relationship, we might go to great lengths to repress common knowledge.

We might avoid looking someone in the eye or pretend to ignore the elephant in the room or mumble with great incoherence.

This is why in everyday conversation, we often don't ...

blurt out what we mean in so many words, but veil our intentions in innuendo and euphemism, counting on our listeners to catch our drift.

A classic example is the sexual come-on, Would You Like to Come Up and See My Etchings?, which by the 1930s was so familiar that James Thurber could draw a cartoon in which the hapless man says to his date, You wait here, and I'll bring the etchings down.

A century later, Etchings has become Netflix and chill.

We also veil our bribes, as in, gee, officer, is there some way we might settle the ticket here?

And our threats, as in, I'm so delighted to learn that you're on the jury of the Soprano trial.

It's an important civic duty that we should all take part in.

You've got a wife and kids.

We know you'll do the right thing.

The point of innuendo is not plausible deniability, because these euphemisms don't pass the giggle test, but rather deniability of common knowledge.

If Harry says to Sally, want to come up for Netflix and chill, and Sally turns him down, well, Sally knows she's turned down a sexual overture, and Harry knows that Sally has turned down a sexual overture.

But does Sally know that Harry knows?

She could think, maybe he thinks I'm naive.

And does Harry know that Sally knows that Harry knows?

He could think, maybe she thinks I'm dense.