Is this Appeal to Extremes?

Let's say I send someone an email, and they respond: "Your writing stinks."

I respond: "Well, I thought it was fine. I didn't know you wanted to correspond with Herman Melville."

Is that an example of Appeal to Extremes? Something else?

Thanks in advance!

I'd say it's a witty retort. Well done!

It appears to me as more of a snappy retort to a nasty message. I do, however, think that an argument could be made for the appeal to extremes fallacy. Put it this way, if I were the one who made the snappy retort I would argue against it being a fallacy, and if I were the target of the retort, I would argue for the fallacy.

 

 

That response doesn't just have a whiff of Appeal to Extremes, it's got the whole pungent bouquet! Essentially, you've reached into your bag of literary heavyweights and pulled out Herman Melville to contrast with your own prose. You’re saying it’s either "pretty okay email lingo" or "deep sea levels of Moby Dick complexity." This is definitely using an extreme case to highlight the perceived unreasonableness of the criticism. So, yes, you’ve essentially turned up the drama dial to “19th Century American Novelist” and said, “didn't realize our e-mails needed to be manuscript ready!” Meanwhile, your friend is just annoyed they couldn’t find the meeting details you buried beneath a wall of text.

I don't think there's really any logic to dissect here.

The person, most charitably, expressed a subjective opinion about the quality of your writing. If they wanted to do that in good faith and open a discussion, they could have pointed to spelling and grammar errors or specific word choices, and compared to what reasonable expectations would be. But instead, they basically phrased it as an insult.

Any reasonable person reading your reply would realize that you're not being literal. You're stating an opposing opinion, that the quality of your writing is sufficient, and the reference to a classic author is simply a device to illustrate that their expectations may be too high .

Seems like a satirical retort to a semi-ad hominem attack

Hi.  First poster here (!) - agree no fallacy, just opinion.