Speaking indirectly about indirect speech

As I was complaining to my friend last night about how I don't know whether the guy I'm interested in is single, they suggested I simply ask him, to which I hysterically responded with a big "no". This would be, of course, too blatantly obvious and therefore simply inappropriate in the delicate matter of flirting. It made me not only laugh but also inspired me to think about the wonders of speaking indirectly.

Why do we communicate in ways which seem error-prone instead of stating our intentions unambiguously? Why do we bother with employing innuendos which puzzlingly seem rather unnecessary and inefficient? "So what are you up to tonight then? Going out with your missus?" It's hilarious, really.

I remember reading ‘’The Logic of Indirect Speech’’ by S. Pinker, M. A. Nowak and J. J. Lee a while back and thinking how brilliant this article was. I recommend reading it as well, here’s where you will find it:

The logic of indirect speech

What strikes me, however, is that they use rather confusing terminology as what they describe as indirect speech in their article is not what grammarians understand as reported speech. Those two terms are often synonyms in grammatical sense but in sociolinguistcs they obviously aren’t. I think it’s safer to refer to what Pinker, Nowak and Lee are talking about as speaking indirectly rather than indirect speech. Yes, it’s one of those paradoxes of English language where you have the same term that means two completely different things.

Moving on, I feel I owe you a bit of explanation on what indirect speech/reported speech is as well. In English grammar we have both direct and indirect speech and reported speech is a synonym for the latter. When we give information about what people say or think we can say exactly what it was and quote them e.g. He said, ‘’You’re fit!’’. We can also ‘’report’’ what they said without quoting them word for word e.g. ‘’He said I was fit’’. The first is, of course, an example of direct speech whereas the latter – indirect speech.

A heated debate ensued last night when my friend was adamant that my article wasn’t about indirect speech. So, I pointed him in the direction of the article by Professor Pinker et al and the matter was resolved. However, I never fully found out the aforementioned guy’s relationship status…