Or "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means”
There are all sorts of fallacies in argumentation (or almost equivalently transfer of information). Faulty logic, all the fun fallacies of irrelevance like appeals to authority and numbers and such.
One that particularly bothers me is word usage. Words have many meanings, technical and informal. Even in the most technical of languages, science and mathematics, where words are supposed to have clear precise meanings, they still use metaphor and connotation. A 'normal' curve, a 'regular' graph, a 'set'. An autism-spectrum difficulty (I use that metaphorically) is not knowing when to care if a word is intended formally or not; everything is literal when talking tech.
That's all empty rationalization in order to introduce this, a proverb by Schopenhauer:
"A man generally supposes that there must be some meaning in words:
Gewöhnlich glaubt der Mensch, wenn er nur Worte hört, Es müsse sich dabei doch auch was denken lassen[Commonly man believes that if he only hears some words, there must be something in them to ponder over]"
This quote is verbatim from a translation. That is the German is in the translation and the original identically, and The original doesn't have the '[Commonly...] part. So really 'A man..' is the only part truly translated.
The confusing thing here (among many) is what is the source of 'Gewöhnlich...'. Is that a quote by Schopenhauer of someone else, German or otherwise? Or did S set it aside as special? S gave no reference, but he doesn't set aside any other passage in a similar manner. Ah... all it takes is looking it up. It is by Goethe. No matter where you go, someone has been there before. That virgin forest, with rotting fallen trunks and random unruly thickets? Reclaimed farmland. More than once.
Also, looking at the original German, the single line before the quote is
Den Gegner durch sinnlosen Wortschwall verdutzen, verblüffen
which is literally "the opponent through senseless word-torrent is baffled and amazed" or more idiomatically "You can baffle and amaze your opponent by a flood of words" (modulo lots of synonyms for every word but all giving about the same idea)
This is, though it may share in the sentiment of the translation, not the same thing. At least not even a loose translation. It's as though the translator digested the words, slept on it, went on a trip a few days, and then gave kind of an implication of an idea of the import of the sentence. But not a translation.
Some translation also include right before:
You may also puzzle and bewilder your opponent by mere bombast
which is a close translation. It's as though the translators think they should just paraphrase the Goethe quote and drop S's.
Anyway, what's the point? It really bugs me when people use words wrong.
Update: Duh. It's from Faust (EN: scene VI The Witch's Kitchen) or (DE: Hexenkueche)
References
The translation:
The Art of Controversy (The Art of Being Right) Strategem 36 (p 37-39), note the long passage in German from The Vicar of Wakefield
Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten Kunstgriff 36 (p 37-39), note the long passage in German from The Vicar of Wakefield
The original English of the passage displaying the BS:
The Vicar of Wakefield chapter 7 in the original English
The passage, for convenience:
The Squire: I hope you'll not deny that whatever is is. If you don't grant me that, I can go no further.
Moses: Why, I think I may grant that, and make the best of it.
S: I hope too you'll grant that a part is less than the whole.
M: I grant that too, it is but just and reasonable.
S: I hope, you will not deny, that the two angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones.
M: Nothing can be plainer
S: Very well, the premises being thus settled, I proceed to observe, that the concatenation of self existences, proceeding in a reciprocal duplicate ratio, naturally produce a problematical dialogism, which in some measure proves that the essence of spirituality may be referred to the second predicable
M: Hold, hold, I deny that: Do you think I can thus tamely submit to such heterodox doctrines?
S: What, not submit! Answer me one plain question: Do you think Aristotle right when he says, that relatives are related?
M: Undoubtedly
S: If so then, answer me directly to what I propose: Whether do you judge the analytical investigation of the first part of my enthymem deficient secundum quoad, or quoad minus, and give me your reasons: give me your reasons, I say, directly.
M: I protest, I don't rightly comprehend the force of your reasoning; but if it be reduced to one simple proposition, I fancy it may then have an answer.
S: O sir, I am your most humble servant, I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too
Notes:
"Whatever is, is"
Aristotle's Law of Identity - so incontrovertible that it is hard to imagine even the need to state it. Of course, libraries have been filled with it's discussion.
"The part is less than the whole"
Common Notion 5 from Euclid's Elements incontrovertible but still needs thought to digest why it even needs to be said.
"The two angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles" (should be 'three angles of a triangle')
One of the early theorems in Euclid's Elements - not obvious at all to modern readers, and needs an explanation. In past centuries where al the mathematical teaching provided was sums and Euclid all day long, it would have been pounded in day after day and therefore purely by the propaganda of teaching, would have been incontrovertible.
This is then followed by a load of horseshit. Twice. The strategy is obscurantism of the mean kind (the good kind? 'lying to children'. wait, that doesn't sound nice at all), to use words that sound good, but are so abstruse, that one just assumes they must be right (because it would be rude or time-consuming to question them) but used either to hide ignorance (and win the argument anyway) or hide illumination from the others.
