Implications

I often reflect on the (unintended?) implications of what we say and how we behave. Here is one, for example. When I was in St Stephen's (Delhi), I was once solving one of those differential equations that pester you if you take a course in Imaginary Numbers (not to be confused with 'imaginative numbers', that's another kettle of fish). One of my classmates was reading a novel, probably one of Marquez's, and another one was browsing through the newspaper.

The first looked up from his book and said to the latter : 'Can you look up the word 'trite' in the dictionary?', and the second complied.

Three years after this happened, I was sitting in a bus one day when this incident flashed through my mind, and I began to ponder on the implication of his asking the question, 'Can you look up the word 'trite' in the dictionary?' before asking the more charitable one, 'Do you know the meaning of the word 'trite''?

Was he then (unintendedly?) implying that his other friend would necessarily not know the meaning of the word 'trite', or that he had a poor vocabulary?