How to say "Happy birthday!" and mean it

Last week two of my acquaintances had their birthday. On both occasions I failed to say to them "Happy birthday!" It was just a matter of sending a short note; why should it be so hard? What does it take for this communicative act to be successful?

On an "emotivist" construal (which, I think, may be the most natural way of understanding the sentence), in saying "Happy birthday!" one merely evinces her emotion, and the sentence expresses no proposition. Consequently, the meaning of this sentence said to be on a par with something like: "Hooray for your birthday!"

On this interpretation, the sentence "Happy birthday!" is neither true nor false. The fact that the sentence does not possess truth value does not mean, however, every utterance of this sentence is automatically successful (or unsuccessful, for that matter). In particular, the sentence "Happy birthday!" is appropriate if and only if the agent who utters it in fact approves of the good wishes made for the birthday under consideration.

To put it in a plainer language, in order to say "Happy birthday!" to someone and mean it appropriately, one has to in fact be happy about the addressee's birthday. (The late Wittgenstein would not like this way of speaking, but let us set that issue aside.) Now, then, the (practical) question is whether or not I am happy about anyone's birthday.

Why should I be happy about anyone's birthday (including my own)? I should like to say that there is no reason I should be happy merely by virtue of the fact that it is someone's birthday. But if this is the case, then I cannot utter the sentence "Happy birthday!" to anyone successfully, at least on the emotivist interpretation of the matter.

An alternative to the emotivist account of the meaning of (the utterance of) the sentence "Happy birthday!" would be to see its content as some kind of ellipsis for "I congratulate you on your birthday." This content is forwarded with the force of congratulation; that is, the utterance is intended to be so understood (it is overtly expressed as congratulation) . Thus on this interpretation saying "Happy birthday!" is a speech act; it is a type of act which can paradigmatically be performed by saying that one is doing so.

As a speech act, then, it is in peril of being unsuccessful,or infelicitous (as Austin put it). There are two classes of infelicity: misfire and abuse. The former occurs when the speaker lacks appropriate authority to perform the putative speech act (as when I try to appoint the prime minister of Japan), or when the uptake necessary for the performance fails to obtain (as when nobody takes my bet): in such cases speech act fails to be performed at all. The latter occurs when the speech act is not accompanied by appropriate mental states (intention, emotion, etc.).

Can the "happy birthday" speech act misfire? No particular authority (social or otherwise) seems necessary for one to say happy birthday to someone: anyone can congratulate anyone's birthday. But one might perhaps say that the addressee's recognition of the act is necessary uptake for congratulation. The question here is: Can I congratulate someone without that person recognizing my act? I am inclined to say that it sounds little odd to say "I congratulated him on his birthday but he didn't notice." But we do say "congratulations!" on a blog, say, knowing full well that the addressee might not recognize it.

Put in other words, my intuition is that "I congratulated her" conventionally implies "she recognized my congratulation (in one way or another)." But this point can be disputed. Much more serious problem for happy performance of saying "happy birthday," however, seems to be posed by possibility of abuse.

If I say "I promise to come to the party" but have no intention of going to the party, then I have performed a speech act, which is nevertheless infelicitous, because it is an abuse. Sincerity is thus a crucial factor for avoiding abuse. Regarding the "happy birthday" speech act, then, the same problem mentioned in the emotivist interpretation seems to arise as well. Namely, for my speech act of congratulating someone's birthday to be felicitous, I must in fact intend to congratulate that person's birthday. To congratulate, according to standard dictionary definition, means to give one's good wishes. "Good wishes," in turn, are desire for someone's success, good fortune, etc.

But, again, why should I come to have desire for someone's success and good fortune just in virtue of the fact that it is that person's birthday? That today is the day that has certain properties (namely that it is someone's birthday) does not by itself seem sufficient for arousing any particular emotion. Therefore, on this interpretation, too, I don't seem to be able to perform "happy birthday" speech act felicitously.

Finally, I note one other circumstantial factor that might make my act of speech misfire and fail to be a felicitous speech act.

One popular (by this I mean common) function of online calender application and SNS service is notification of events, including people's birthdays. For both of the two birthdays I mentioned at the beginning, I didn't remember the date myself, but was reminded by such notification system. I was reminded of the birthdays by impersonal application, and, crucially, this precluded the possibility of my remembering the date myself.

My fear is that this might render my saying "happy birthday" an instance of misfiring. To see my point, consider the following example. Suppose I make an arrangement with a flower shop so that every year a bouquet is sent to someone on her birthday, without my actively doing anything. In this case, surely I cannot be said to be congratulating her every year appropriately.

This suggests that there needs to be some kind of active engagement on my part in remembering someone's birthday, if I am to congratulate her on it felicitously. Otherwise, even if I say the words "happy birthday!" I cannot be said to mean it felicitously.

"Things are much more easily said than done," a proverb has it, but I should like to say: Things are much more easily said than meant.