So you agree that, as with this statement, it can come across as a tad condescending when people narrate the tautologically obvious as a way to make a point in an argument?
I don’t know what your point is. Clearly the argument I was making is not tautologically obvious. If it were then the comment above mine wouldn’t have existed. They said the headline was wrong. That the picture wasn’t fake, it was staged. I made the argument that staged could be argued to be fake. That isn’t tautological.
Ah, for clarity: The argument isn’t tautological, calling an argument about semantics a semantic argument is. It’s also an extremely common way to dismiss someone’s claims in an argument as vague or indefinite, which in an argument about a semantic point was a rather odd thing for you to do.
OK, point to where I dismissed something. Do you think saying something is a semantic argument is dismissing it? I was making the semantic argument. I don’t know if you read the full comment, but it is totally about the semantics —about how staged and fake are not mutually exclusive. Do you think I was dismissing my own argument?
I feel like people read the word “semantics” and short-circuited. They think the word only means “pointless” or something. I used it to say that I was going to be making a semantic argument.
“Neither are definitely correct” - it’s right there, and although I guess you didn’t intend that, it’s what you were doing.
You’re not being criticized because people “short-circuted” or failed understand your comment (it wasn’t exactly complex), you’re being criticized because you did an incredibly common thing and then you have evidently failed to understand that’s what you were doing.
An argument about the usage and contextual meaning of an aspect of language is very literally a semantic argument.
That’s literally what I said…
So you agree that, as with this statement, it can come across as a tad condescending when people narrate the tautologically obvious as a way to make a point in an argument?
I don’t know what your point is. Clearly the argument I was making is not tautologically obvious. If it were then the comment above mine wouldn’t have existed. They said the headline was wrong. That the picture wasn’t fake, it was staged. I made the argument that staged could be argued to be fake. That isn’t tautological.
Ah, for clarity: The argument isn’t tautological, calling an argument about semantics a semantic argument is. It’s also an extremely common way to dismiss someone’s claims in an argument as vague or indefinite, which in an argument about a semantic point was a rather odd thing for you to do.
OK, point to where I dismissed something. Do you think saying something is a semantic argument is dismissing it? I was making the semantic argument. I don’t know if you read the full comment, but it is totally about the semantics —about how staged and fake are not mutually exclusive. Do you think I was dismissing my own argument?
I feel like people read the word “semantics” and short-circuited. They think the word only means “pointless” or something. I used it to say that I was going to be making a semantic argument.
“Neither are definitely correct” - it’s right there, and although I guess you didn’t intend that, it’s what you were doing.
You’re not being criticized because people “short-circuted” or failed understand your comment (it wasn’t exactly complex), you’re being criticized because you did an incredibly common thing and then you have evidently failed to understand that’s what you were doing.