Fallacy question


Fether
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Is there a fallacy name or a single-word description where the person attacks the execution of the argument and not the argument itself? I know Ad Hominem is attacking the individual, but I am not concerned about that.

I was engaged in a conversation the other day on a different forum where I was trying to explain a concept, but in my initial description, I used a phrase that poorly represented the argument. Despite there being enough content outside that one phrase to fully grasp what I was saying, and I even going back on it to correct myself later and admit it was a poor use of words, everyone pounced at began using that phrase as the source of argument for the next 3 pages of dialogue.

Maybe there is a word or fallacy that focuses on a single phrase in an argument and ignores the "however" or the exceptions listed after? In this case, they looked at the misrepresentation of the argument and used that as the base of their argument, and when I went back to correct myself, they still chose to hang on to it. I feel like "Straw-man" doesn't really cut it as a description

Edited by Fether
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12 hours ago, mordorbund said:

It's the keyhole fallacy. That's where you latch onto one argument or statement in isolation. You might not have heard of it because I just coined it.

If you want to go literary you could call it the synecdoche fallacy - using a part to represent the whole.

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On 6/18/2021 at 10:08 AM, Fether said:

Is there a fallacy name or a single-word description where the person attacks the execution of the argument and not the argument itself? I know Ad Hominem is attacking the individual, but I am not concerned about that.

Happens all the time, especially with spelling. Ever read/hear someone who seeks to win an argument because they misspelled "you're"?

I would simply call it "sophistry."

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