1. Fallacies of Ambiguity

2. A Word on Semantics the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There are a number of branches and sub branches of semantics, including formal semantics, which studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form, lexical semantics, which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual semantics, which studies the cognitive structure of meaning.

3. Equivocation An ambiguity shift between two or more legitimate meanings of a term. Examples: Mr. B is Hip. Hips don’t lie. Con: Mr. B doesn’t lie. “I gave you my reason, but you don’t listen to reason.” When you are accused of contradicting yourself watch out for equivocation. ie Miracles of science and miracles of the bible.

4. Sock Puppets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73AFO0cLNsE

5. Amphiboly An ambiguity caused by a faulty sentence structure. Involves the whole structure. Not just a few terms. Examples: Caution slow children. “If you don’t go to other people’s funerals, they won’t come to yours.” Pronouns with ambiguous antecedents, improper punctuation, and dangling modifiers are some of the grammatical weakness that often result in the fallacy. Other sources of the fallacy are: our failure to adjust words to changing context; our efforts to be too brief; the incongruous juxtaposition of two sentences; and ordinary clumsiness.

6. Accent A statement that is ambiguous because (1) its intended voice or tone is uncertain; (2) its stress is unclear; or (3) it is quoted out of context. Examples: “It is impossible to praise this book too highly.” “Jones thinks Mcintosh will succeed.”

7. Hypostatization The treatment of abstract terms like concrete ones, sometimes even the ascription of humanlike properties to them. Similar to personification. Example: “These mountains push you away, but they pull you back.” “Love whispered calmly in his ear.” “The job called him and asserted its dominance over him.”

8. Division The assumption that what is true of (1) the whole or (2) the group must be true of the parts or members (trying to “divide” what is true of the whole among its parts). Examples: “I can’t tear this phonebook in half, therefore, I can’t tear one page of it in half.” “TJ is the classiest school In Rutherford Co. John Doe (a student at TJ) must be one of the classiest kids in Rutherford Co.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_NZ-T6u1Qs

9. Composition The assumption that what is true of (1) a part of a whole or (2) a member of a group must be true of the whole or the group (trying to “compose” whole out of its parts). Examples: “ The piece of pie I’ve been served is wedge-shaped and so is my friend’s. They must have come from a wedge-shaped pie.” “Every human is mortal, so one day the human race will disappear.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JELm6peL_sI