Equivocation Fallacy Examples In Media, Real Life, Politics, Movies & Ads

 

Equivocation Fallacy

Equivocation Fallacy  Definition:

Equivocation fallacy is when someone has a specific meaning in mind for a word but uses a different term instead, which changes the meaning of their argument. In this article, we will explore an example of an equivocation fallacy and explore what happens when someone uses this fallacy as part of an argument. Jane presented arguments for why the city should buy her goldfish stand. There are several reasons the city should buy my goldfish stand.

Rhetoric and Equivocation Fallacy

Rhetoric is basically a skill set that can be used to persuade. It’s also considered a joke and is not taken seriously in most cases. However, it is true that it can be used to persuade and is sometimes a form of art. It’s also true that it can be a form of logical reasoning.

In Rhetoric, several fallacies are used to make the argument seem stronger. Equivocations Fallacy is one of the more popular ones.

Equivocation is a fallacy in which a term means one thing in one place and is suddenly restricted to another meaning in a different place. It is an issue of ambiguity and can be applied to analogies and to definitions.

The fallacy occurs when there are two different definitions for the same word, and one definition is used in one place, and the other definition is used in another place.

The Equivocation Fallacy is an often-cited form of argument known as a logical fallacy. Critics of this argument cite situations where people confuse two different meanings of a term and then make an assertion contrary to the normal meaning.

One way to think about the Equivocation Fallacy is to think of it as being similar to a slippery slope argument. One example of an Equivocation Fallacy is when a person says that they have a “right to bear arms.”

Equivocation Fallacy Examples

Equivocation Fallacy Examples in real life

Examples of Equivocation Fallacy in Real Life: 

A person who is in the military and has been deployed overseas for a long time might say, “I’m not going to be home this Christmas.”.

The speaker means that they will not be home on December 25th because of their deployment, but some people may interpret it as meaning that they are never coming back at all.

This is an example of equivocation fallacy because there was no clear explanation about what the speaker meant by “not going to be home.”

Equivocation Fallacy Examples in Media

Examples of Equivocation Fallacy in Media:

A popular example of equivocation fallacy in media is using a word’s meaning to change an argument.

For instance, when someone says, “I’m not racist because I have black friends,” they are using the definition of racism as prejudice against people because of their skin color and then changing it to mean discrimination against people based on their race.

This changes the meaning of the word and makes it seem like it doesn’t apply to them.

Equivocation Fallacy Examples in Advertising

Examples of Equivocation Fallacy in Advertisements:

Equivocation Fallacy is when a word or phrase has two different meanings, and the speaker uses one meaning in one sentence and another meaning in a second sentence.

 For example: “I can’t believe you ate all my cookies!” (The speaker means that they are surprised because they were expecting their friend to share) vs. “I can’t believe you ate all my cookies!” (The speaker is angry because their friend stole them).

Equivocation Fallacy Examples in Politics

Examples of Equivocation Fallacy in Politics:

Equivocation is a fallacy of ambiguity that occurs when someone uses the same word in two different senses within a sentence, and it’s not clear which sense they mean.

For example, “I’m going to make this perfectly clear” could be interpreted as meaning either “I will explain this so there are no misunderstandings” or “This will be easy to understand.”

The first interpretation is an example of equivocation because the speaker has used one word with two different meanings.

The second interpretation is not an example of equivocation because the speaker has used one word with only one meaning.

Equivocation Fallacy Examples in Movies

Examples of Equivocation Fallacy in Movies:

The protagonist in the movie is a detective who says, “I’m not saying that you’re lying.”.  A character in the film says, “It’s not like I’m going to be able to do anything about it.”.  The main character of the story says, “I’ll never stop trying.”

Equivocation Fallacy Examples in Literature

Examples of Equivocation Fallacy in Literature:

Equivocation is the use of a word with more than one meaning, especially in such a way that the different meanings are incompatible or incongruous.

In literature, equivocation can be found when an author uses words to mean something different from what they typically mean.

For example, if someone says “I’m going to take a shower” and then goes outside for 30 minutes without taking off their clothes, this would be considered equivocation because it’s not clear whether they meant “take a bath” or “take a walk.”

Equivocation Fallacy Examples in News

Examples of Equivocation Fallacy in News: 

The article claims that the President is a liar because he said, “I never told Comey to stop investigating Flynn,” and then later admitted in an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt, “I did fire him, yeah.”

A statement can be true in one sense but false in another sense. For example, if I say “the sky is blue,” it’s true that the sky’s color is blue; however, it’s not true that there are no clouds up there.