Comment by gcmrtc
3 years ago
> The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff, so any vehicle driving there could cause a landslide that topples the vehicle over the cliff and could kill anyone on the beach below. No vehicles in the park.
That would be a terrible phrasing then. It should have been phrased something like "Landslide hazard, no weight more than 1ton allowed anywhere in the park." or something in that vein.
This is core to the Gricean Maxim of Quantity [1], according to which one gives as much information as needed but no more. If the sign says "No vehicles in the park" and nothing else then any reasonable person should assume that the reason for the sign is so obvious that no further clarification is needed.
Unrelated, it is also the reason why a hot-dog is not a sandwich, pragmatically speaking.
[1] https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/dravling/grice.html