Implicitly

Towards more picturesque speech™ →Go uptown SEC guidance on plain EnglishIndex: Click ᐅ to expand: Plain English Drafting Metaphor Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

Implicitly
/ɪmˈplɪsɪtli/ (adv.)

1. By implication; the quality of a communication intended to convey something besides its literal content:

“The Queen said, “please be seated, Prime Minister,” but only out of the requirements of form; it was ~ clear she wished the First Lord of the Admiralty to remain standing.”

2. So profoundly that it need not be said out loud.

“When Elaine handed Roger the keys it was clear she trusted him ~ .”

3. Indicative of a state of mind or knowledge one wishes one had had; that it would have been most convenient for one to have had but, on the plain facts available to any attentive bystander, it would have been quite preposterous for one to have actually had:

“I believed ~ that this was a work event.”

Implicit belief is a kind of dark inversion of constructive knowledge: whereas the latter is a hypothetical state of mind one claims not to have had but, in a court’s view any half-decent person would have had, “implicit belief” is a state of mind one claims to have had but, in the court of public opinion, no-one with a sense of common decency can possibly have had.

See also

• Constructive knowledge