Let us understand fallacies of ambiguity. Such fallacies occur because a statement can be (mis)understood in multiple ways.
Let us begin with simple but quite famous examples of ambiguity. "I saw her duck" can mean "her duck" (a bird) or her "slip away" (an activity of stealthily going away). Another example of such vagueness can be "The fisherman went to the bank" where "bank" can relate either to a river or a financial institution.
The well-known fallacy of equivocation is built on such multiple meanings. Let us look at an example of such a logical fallacy wherein a single word/phrase has multiple meanings throughout the argument.
For example: Premise 1: Flowers are light (not heavy). Premise 2: Light ( colour wise) things cannot be dark. Conclusion: Flowers cannot be dark.
Advertisers use such fallacious statements most effectively.
Pratima Agnihotri
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