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Michael

"Homonym fallacies"

Is there a Homonym Fallacy, i.e. two words that are spelled differently, mean different things but are pronounced the same?
For example: 
"The reign in Spain was different 60 years ago." Different regime.
"The rain in Spain was different 60 years ago." Climate change?

asked on Friday, Jan 01, 2021 05:09:40 PM by Michael

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Answers

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TrappedPrior (RotE)
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You'd simply ask the person to clarify what they mean. 

Unless they are being dishonest, you'll get a straight answer - in this case, either reign (as in period of time when a person ruled) or rain (meteorological phenomenon).

I don't know if there's a specific fallacy, it would just be deceit otherwise.

answered on Saturday, Jan 02, 2021 06:57:13 AM by TrappedPrior (RotE)

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Michael writes:

Thank you.
My mistake. I meant a homophone (not a homonym ) fallacy. Is there one?

posted on Sunday, Jan 03, 2021 12:05:53 PM
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TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:

Not to my knowledge. 

posted on Monday, Jan 04, 2021 01:16:08 PM
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TrappedPrior (RotE)
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The fallacy of equivocation is the fallacy of switching between 2 definitions of a word.

answered on Thursday, Nov 10, 2022 04:09:20 PM by TrappedPrior (RotE)

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Anthony
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Polysemous words and homographs constitute a known problem for both language learners and rational discourse. In the case of what I would assign as the relevant fallacy here (equivocation), what makes a term “ambiguous” does not define the fallacy but the “usage of ambiguity” itself. 

As such, a fallacy of equivocation occurs when a key term or phrase in an argument is used in an ambiguous way with misleading results. 

answered on Friday, Nov 11, 2022 06:51:32 AM by Anthony

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