Oct 27 2022 22 mins
In this episode, April explains linguistic ambiguity, equivocation, and the equivocation fallacy. She also tells some really bad jokes.
Episode 28 Show Notes:
Moore, Brooke and Parker, Richard. Critical Thinking. McGraw Hill. 2017.
This is current textbook I use to teach my Critical Reasoning class. Much of what I say here about the types of linguistic ambiguity is taken from this excellent text.
ThoughtCo is a reference site that focuses on educational content. Their articles are written by highly qualified educators and experienced instructors.
https://www.thoughtco.com/polysemy-words-and-meanings-1691642
How many words are there in the English language? This article will tell you:
https://englishlive.ef.com/blog/language-lab/many-words-english-language/
This WhatIs.com article discusses how linguistic ambiguity makes it difficult for artificial intelligence (and of course people) to decode language:
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/linguistic-ambiguity#:~:text=Linguistic%20ambiguity%20is%20a%20quality%20of%20language%20that,program%20to%20reliably%20decode%20without%20some%20additional%20information
Here's a good discussion of the expectancy violation and humor:
https://thecriticalcomic.com/incongruity-theory/#:~:text=Expectancy%20Violations%20Aristotle%20also%20thought%20humor%20occurred%20with,disappointed%20expectation%20makes%20us%20laugh.%E2%80%9D%20%28ch.%2063%3B%20Morreal%29
Was that really the world's funniest joke? According to this guy, it is:
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/03/07/287250640/what-is-the-funniest-joke-in-the-world
Dr. Itamar Schatz gives a detailed description of equivocation with excellent examples. You should definitely read this:
https://effectiviology.com/equivocation/
Another good explanation of the equivocation falllacy:
https://examples.yourdictionary.com/equivocation-fallacy-examples.html
What speech is considered "unprotected?" Here you go:
https://legalknowledgebase.com/what-speech-is-illegal-in-the-us
No, of COURSE we don't "torture." Except we do (or did, anyway):
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9956644