In light of this post, it occurred to me that we can explain another pasuk in a similar fashion:
וַתִּתְפְּשֵׂהוּ בְּבִגְדוֹ לֵאמֹר שִׁכְבָה עִמִּי
Eishes Potiphar grabs Yosef by his clothing "to say" לאמר lie with me.
It should have said "ותאמר" and not לאמר??
Maybe she didn't verbalize anything. It was just clear from her action that she was saying שכבה עמי.
Remember: Dr. Albert Mehrabian, author of Silent Messages, conducted several studies on nonverbal communication. He found that 7% of any message is conveyed through words, 38% through certain vocal elements, and 55% through nonverbal elements (facial expressions, gestures, posture, etc). Sometimes, we don't even need words at all....
