At the Thanksgiving table, it’s possible and often is the case that family members may bring up things that may be controversial or uncomfortable for people around the table. It’s a good thing Aunt Betty made the Thanksgiving staple, corn sandwiches. These delicious sandwiches will be your way out to this kind of situation.

If person (A) says something uncomfortable, Person (B) may respond with something like,

“Aunt Betty. These corn sandwiches are fantastic! Did you do something differently to them?”

This automatically changes the conversation and violates Grice’s maxim of relevance. This maxim states that a response must be relevant to carry a conversation and by being irrelevant and talking about the corn sandwiches rather than engaging in the controversial topic, you are violating this rule and getting it across to person (A) that you would rather not talk about whatever they brought up.

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