When words break: language fallacies

Definition

Language fallacies are failures of the word-and-structure reasoning you've learned. Equivocation shifts a key word's meaning mid-argument; ambiguity trades on a sentence that reads two ways; composition carries a property from parts to whole when it doesn't survive the trip; division carries one from whole to parts when it doesn't either. The definitional and part–whole disciplines — pin the word, license the transfer — are exactly what these four skip.

Memory hook

“Same word, same reading, licensed trip — or no argument.”

What it sounds like

• Free is free, whichever way you take it. (equivocation)
• That's not how we read that clause. (ambiguity)
• Every part is excellent, so the whole must be. (composition)
• It's a wealthy guild, so its members must be wealthy. (division)