"Infer" vs. "imply" — can "infer" imply "imply"?

Okay that's a crazy title, but bear with me. Got into a good natured discussion with someone on another stack exchange site, and I was "correcting" him on the use of infer vs. imply.

(The discussion can be found here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8471/did-eleanor-roosevelt-say-that-the-jews-brought-the-holocaust-on-themselves/8485?noredirect=1#comment60705_8485)

He pointed me to a dictionary entry for "infer" that seems to use the definition for imply.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infer

The 4th definition that is given there reads:

suggest, hint - "are you inferring I'm incompetent?"

That, to me, is a classic example of where someone should not use "infer", but should use "imply". But maybe I'm wrong?

Granted, it's the 4th of four definitions, and so presumably less common, but I thought the two, "imply" and "infer" had totally distinct meanings. According to definition #4 on that link "infer" can imply "imply".

Am I nuts? Am I the only one surprised by this? (very possible...I'm often surprised by English). Or is it possible that the dictionary is...something less than accurate? It's not a mom-and-pop shop, so that seems unlikely...but I throw it out there as a possibility...but if the dictionary is wrong, where do you go to to find evidence of it? (Who watches the watchmen?)

Solution 1:

The same Merriam-Webster link provides the answer further down.

At present sense 4 is found in print chiefly in letters to the editor and other informal prose, not in serious intellectual writing. The controversy over sense 4 has apparently reduced the frequency of use of sense 3.

Solution 2:

In common usage, there is a subtle difference between the two:

Imply tends to refer to meaning that is intended by the author/speaker.

Infer, on the other hand, tends to refer to meaning that is gleaned by the reader/listener.

For this reason, if communication is taking place effectively, the information implied by the speaker should be inferred by the listener, and hence in such circumstances inferred information is implied and implied information is inferred.

The difference becomes more important when information is miscommunicated. In such a circumstance, the listener may infer something that was not intended by the speaker, or the speaker may imply something that is not properly communicated to the listener.

Here we can see that the two phrases here are equivalent:

"are you inferring I'm incompetent?"

"have you concluded that I am incompetent?"

This is subtly different to

"are you implying that I'm incompetent"

which means

Is it your intention to state that "I'm incompetent"?

In the former, the speaker wishes to know if the listener has deducted or concluded that the speaker is incompetent, presumably based on the conversation with the speaker. In the latter, the speaker is not asking if the listener thinks the speaker is incompetent, but rather is asking whether the listener is intending to call (either indirectly or directly) the speaker incompetent.

Consider the difference thus:

1: We've read the documents surrounding your conduct on the McNeilson case.

2: Have you inferred that I am incompetent? (Having read the documents, is it your conclusion that I am incompetent?)

versus

1: I've submitted some documents surrounding your poor decision making to the McNeilson panel.

2: Are you implying that I'm incompetent!? (Are you intending to suggest that I am incompetent?)

Solution 3:

An analogy here -

In the American South, it is not uncommon to say, "I'm going to learn you some manners!" when in fact the appropriate phrase is "I'm going to teach you some manners."

When two words identifying the same activity (in the case of infer / imply - extracting an implicit meaning from a text or teach / learn - to pass on knowledge in some fashion) but from opposite points of view (the author implies, the reader infers), it is not unreasonable for the mistaken usage to gain currency.

Here, I would suggest the same issue - a misuage that has gained sufficient currency as to be recorded. The definition is thus descriptive, not prescriptive,