Why don't you...?

Today's Candorville is a nice example of pragmatics.

Normally, we would interpret Lemont's answer to mean "It's called 'Katrina's Ghost' because I hate spoilers." But the rest of the strip is expanding on his hate of spoilers, and then other things he hates about movie trailers. So she (and we) feels he's not answering her question (even though he is). But the strip is funny, and pragmatics is why.

What makes this strip work is that although he is answering her question, it's not the one she wanted answered - and that we are expecting him to answer - which is "Why is your book called 'Katrina's Ghost'?" We expect panel two to be about why there's no Katrina in the book, or whatever would make 'Katrina's Ghost' a non-spoilerish title. Instead, he talks about spoilers more, and we suddenly realize that he's answering the face-value question: why doesn't he tell her why he called the book 'Katrina's Ghost'? Because to do so would spoil the book.

What's happening here is that the visual set-up cues us to interpret the "why don't you X?" to mean something other than actually "why don't you X?" In classrooms and interviews and panels (among others), "why don't you X?" doesn't mean "why don't you", it means "Do X". It's a politely disguised request - order, even, in some situations.

If the two characters had been standing at the bus stop, his answer would have followed, and not been funny. It's our understanding of the pragmatics of the conversation which makes it funny.

Full strip here (pick Aug 9 if you're reading this later)