Fallacies of Ambiguity

What is a fallacy of Ambiguity?

Some arguments are constructed using ambiguous
words or phrases, whose meaning shift and change
within the course of the argument, thus rendering them
fallacious.
These fallacies of ambiguity occur in several forms:
1. Equivocation: Some words have more than one literal
meaning. When we confuse the several meanings of a
word or phrase- accidentally or deliberately- then, we
use the word equivocally. If we do that in the context
of an argument, we commit the fallacy of equivocation.

Examples of Equivocation:
E.g.: Who did you pass on the road? the King went on,
holding his hand out to the messenger for some hay.
Nobody, said the messenger.
Quite right, said the King; this young lady saw him
too. So of course Nobody walks slower than you.
In this conversation, the word nobody as first used by the
speaker here simply means no person but then the
reference to nobody is shifted to a pronoun him as
though the word nobody named a person.

2. Amphiboly:
When one of the statements in an argument has more
than one possible meaning because of the loose or
awkward way in which the words in that statement
are combined.
E.g: In the command, "Save soap and waste paper,"
the amphibolous use of "waste" results in the problem
of determining whether "waste" functions as a verb or
as an adjective.

3. Accent:
Accent: An argument may turn fallacious when a shift
of meaning within it arises from changes in the
emphasis given to its words or parts. When the
premiss relies for its apparent meaning on one
possible emphasis, but a conclusion is drawn from it
that relies on the meaning of the same words accented
differently, the fallacy of accent is committed.

Examples of fallacies of accent:

E.g.: We Should1 not speak2 ill of our friends3.
Depending on the accent there can be three different
interpretations:
In case of emphasis on 1, a conclusion can be drawn soundly.
But it can mean that we should feel free to speak ill of those
who are not our friends if the last word 3 is accented. But this
would require another presmiss and so is fallacious.
Also, it may that we are free to work ill on our friends if only
we do not speak of it- in case 2 is accented. But this is invalid
too because it is only suggestive from the premiss here but not
based on it and requires another well formed premiss to
validate it.

 Another example can be the use of a sensational

heading or a clipped photograph in print media to
encourage conclusions rather than on factual findings
or publishing only a particular section of a critics
judgment on the blurb of a book without indicating
the original response (with dots) or whether passages
have been omitted; thereby distorting the response to
draw mistaken conclusions.

4. Composition:
This mistake is made a) when one mistakes the
attributes of a part to the attributes of the whole itself.
E.g.:
Every course I took in college was well-organized.
Therefore, my college education was well-organized.
Even if the premise is true of each and every
component of my curriculum, the whole could have
been a chaotic mess, so this reasoning is defective.

 This is distinct from the fallacy of converse accident,

which improperly generalizes from an unusual
specific case (as in "My philosophy course was wellorganized; therefore, college courses are wellorganized."). For the fallacy of composition, the
crucial fact is that even when something can be truly
said of each and every individual part, it does not
follow that the same can be truly said of the whole
class.

5. Division:
This fallacy is committed when it is argued that what
is true of a whole must also be true of one of its parts.
E.g: Dogs are frequently encountered in streets.
Pugs are dogs.
Pugs are frequently encountered in streets.
One way to avoid these fallacies is to make clear &
careful definition of terms both in meaning and
relevance while constructing an argument.