Monday, October 22, 2007

Dare I claim another?

While working on my essay about common, indeed all too common (or, ordinär, as the Germans would say), arguments against faith, I think I may have coined a new word.

Fallargument.

It is a combination of "fallacy" and "argument" and is pronounced /fəl'argjəmənt/ or "fuh-LAR-gyu-ment".

I Googled it and only found two references to the word, in what I think is Swedish. I tried fallargumentation too and found it in many more pages (esp. in German, which, admittedly, is the default language I use for Google). (When I set my Google to English-default, I still only got two results, also in German.)

In Germanic languages "Fall" means "case, circumstance, state of affairs" (as in a hard case or a legal case). I reckon Fallargumentation is a legal-philosophical term for arguing from (or about?) a given case rather than in the abstract, sort of like arguing about common law as law for life as-it-happens, rather than about the conflict or harmony of law with general moral principles. Point being, I feel justified in claiming the words as my own.

Here's to neologomania and neologomaniacs like me that love it! Here's to neologophilia and neologophiles like me that love it!

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