The girl says “Boys never take me out, and when they do it is only to a drive in movie.”
Is there a name for the error in that statement?
She’s probably reading the guy’s mind, isn’t she?
Help me, aha, you’re my only hope!
The statement, “Boys never take me out” is what’s known as Hyperbole. It’s a useful rhetorical device, used in moderation, but fallacies can easily arise from it.
There are also statements in which an exclusive statement excludes the person or thing meant to be included. Such as: “Nobody’s as good as Joe.” But I don’t know that there’s a name for this.
Are you thinking of a non sequitor, which literally means “It doesn’t follow”? For when the girl says “Boys never take me out,” then she can’t logically say “…and when they do…” It doesn’t follow.
Hope this helps.
This reminds of the famous Yogi Berra-ism (whether he actually sid it or not is ope to debate) when talking about a particular restaurant:
“Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowdeed.”
Well, the two statements made (“Boys never take me out” and “when they do …”) are both slightly ambiguous. From a strictly logical viewpoint, if she meant to say “IF they do …” instead of “when they do” I don’t see a problem. After all, it could certainly be the case that in the hypothetical situation where boys take her out, they always take her to a drive-in theater. That could be the case while it still being the case that boys never take her out.
However, the word “when” implies that such a thing DOES happen, or at least has the possibility of happening in the future. Which of course makes one wonder whether the first statement really means “Boys never, never have, and never will take me out”.
Of course, now my head hurts, so I’ll go away.
.: Hides in corner :.
I would never take her out either and when I did she better give me what I want.
You people are reading too much into this. It is simply called a DUMB BLOND.
ANd yes, it is that simple.
Cecil answered that question already.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_077.html
You’re going to need a new sig if you keep hanging around a board which has a its sole purpose the answering of questions.
Errors, I think, is what you’re looking for there.
“Boys rarely take me out, and when one does it is only to a drive-in movie.” Since not more than one boy (we hope) takes this person out . . . the subject pronoun should be singular.
Watch this turn into a GD . . . big can o’ worms I opened here.
bouv,
**
Do yoy m an to sugg st that all blond s are “dumb?” That isn’t quit tru , you know. In fact, it’s a g n ralization, and whil som ar tru , most ar totally fals !
No, because there is no error.
A=False
IF (when) A, then B.
(I know there should be some handy set notation for this)
If you conclude B or !B, you do have an error, but I do not know what it is called off the top of my head. Someone around here should know. Reverse cause perhaps?
( !A & (A->B, but B)) -> (!A & A) )
Are we talking about taking out, going out or making out?
jmullaney, now you’ve made me go and figure out the truth table, and it looks like you are correct.
A = Boys take me out.
B = It is only to a drive in movie.
The statement “Boys never take me out, and if [when] they do it is only to a drive in movie” becomes:
~A & (A -> B)
The truth table:
A B (A->B) ~A ~A&(A->B)
T T T F F
T F F F F
F T T T T
F F T T T
So the whole statement is valid, but is only true when the first part (Boys never take me out) is false. If someone claimed that both the first part and the entire statement were both true, the fallacy would be inconsistency.
It’s called “leaving out the hyphen in drive-in”.
Hmmmm, I got that backwards. Make that, the whole statement is true when the first part (boys never take me out) is true.
>> the fallacy would be inconsistency
What did you expect? Can’t you see it’s a woman talking?