Talk:Contextomy

Merge to fallacy of quoting out of context

 * Contextomy refers to the selective excerpting of words from their original linguistic context in a way that distorts the source’s intended meaning, a practice commonly (and erroneously) referred to as the fallacy of quoting out of context.

Why is "Contextomy" diffrent then "fallacy of quoting out of context"? ---J.S (t|c) 21:43, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Apparently it isn't different. Although "(and erroneously)" might suggest that the idiomatic expression "taken out of context" should have (or does have) some other relevant meaning, instead the objection is that "taken out of context" is nonsensical when interpreted literally. As I mentioned at the other entry, "taken out of context" returns over 1,000,000 google hits while "contextomy" returns only 429, many of which are mirrors. Do journalists or politicians use "contextomy"? The two articles should be merged with a redirect. Linguistic prescriptivists would redirect to "contextomy" while linguistic descriptivists would redirect to "fallacy of quoting out of context." --67.10.163.122 17:47, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with the above, I'm tagging the article with merge tags. This article should probably also be cleaned up while at it, as the paragraphs are overwhelmingly long. -- intgr 07:18, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, this article shows an insane literalism. The fallacy of "quoting out of context" is an elipsis for "quoted without neccessary, clarifying context that is essential to its proper interpretation". It is clear that this later phrase is clunky.

Terminology
Not to take issue with Milton Mayer, but oughtn't it be "contextotomy"? That would be a "cutting" of context, if the surgical metaphor is being used. MastCell 00:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)