Fallacy

50 Misuse of Etymology
If context and definition are desirable ways to control the range of senses of ambiguous words (see #45), it does not follow that all ways which attempt to control the range lead to happy results. Some, indeed, lead to further confusion. Speakers have been known to insist on insisting that "education" comes from "educere," a Latin word meaning to draw out. From this etymology they argue that education should be a matter of drawing out the student in the sense of coaxing rather than compelling. Maybe it should, but aside from the fact that the word comes from "educate" meaning "to educate," the derivation remains irrelevant to the argument. This fallacy is a form of circularity (see #49), since the audience is asked to subscribe to the conclusion because of the very meaning of some terms used in the premises. Buf simple circularity is hardly apt to deceive, whereas the assumption that words should stick close to etymological sense is a limit on the conventional meaning of words and an unwarranted restriction on the growth of language.
EXAMPLE COMMENT
Richard Whately cites the argument that since "Representative" means one elected to represent a constituency, why then, the elected Representative should seek the advice of his electors and vote the way they tell him. This argument, Whately rightly points out, is contrary to custom, constitutional practice, and good sense. A representative is responsible to his electors, who may throw him out of office if he fails to represent their ultimate interest, but he is expected in the meanwhile to make a professional study of issues that arise in the legislature and to vote on them according to his conscience.
Mystic Peter writes in The Obscurantists Quarterly: "The great physicists, like Newton and Einstein, reduce the vast concepts of Force and Energy to mathematical symbols, but we must never forget that these same words stand for the eternal Power of Life and Spirit that we may use and control in our own thinking." A little more control in Mystic Peter's thinking and there would be no need for comment here. The words "force" and "energy" occur in physics, but there they are given precise meanings which forever separate them from the vague anthropomorphic associations which Peter is attempting to play on. The sentence is false. Whatever Peter is likely to mean by "the eternal power of life and spirit," etc., the words as used by the physicists do not mean that.
Josef Pieper, a contemporary metaphysical philosopher, attempts to show that, not only is leisure of present importance to the spiritual development of Western culture, but that even in the earliest period it was the foundation of it. "That much, at least," he says, "can be learnt from the first chapter of Aristotle's Metaphysics." He goes on, "And even the history of the word attests the fact: for leisure in Greek is skole, and in Latin scola, the English 'school.' The word used to designate the place where we educate and teach is derived from the word which means 'leisure.' 'School' does not, properly speaking, mean school, but leisure."
(Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture, trans. Alexander Dru, with an introduction by T. S. Eliot, Pantheon Books Inc., New York, pp. 25-26).
One learns something from the first chapter of Aristotle's Metaphysics or any other place in any other book of argument, only if the author's arguments are valid and his premises true. Otherwise, see #15. If Mr. Pieper had been content, in his use of etymology, to limit himself to his statement that the "history of the word attests the fact," leisure in its relation to schooling would have constituted supporting evidence of a sort. But he was not content with this. The last sentence is something of a wonder. If "school" does not mean school, how can "leisure" mean leisure or "Pieper" mean Pieper or any word mean anything? "Properly speaking," indeed, clearly does not mean properly speaking. A translation: The English word for school derives from a Latin word for leisure. But this has already been said. Presumably Mr. Pieper is not advising his readers to begin using the word "school" to stand for leisure, but wishes them to remember that the etymology of "school" shows an early understanding of the connection between leisure and education. Thus the use of "mean" in the last sentence is rhetorical, a matter of emphasis, but is concealed in the notorious ambiguity of that term. It is true that Pieper does not use the term in giving the etymologies. If he had written," 'Skole meant leisure in Greek," etc., the shift would be very evident. For another example relying on the ambiguity of "mean" see #45.

EXAMPLE	COMMENT
Richard Whately cites the argument that since "Representative" means one elected to represent a constituency, why then, the elected Representative should seek the advice of his electors and vote the way they tell him. This argument, Whately rightly points out, is contrary to custom, constitutional practice, and good sense. A representative is responsible to his electors, who may throw him out of office if he fails to represent their ultimate interest, but he is expected in the meanwhile to make a professional study of issues that arise in the legislature and to vote on them according to his conscience.
Mystic Peter writes in The Obscurantists Quarterly: "The great physicists, like Newton and Einstein, reduce the vast concepts of Force and Energy to mathematical symbols, but we must never forget that these same words stand for the eternal Power of Life and Spirit that we may use and control in our own thinking."	A little more control in Mystic Peter's thinking and there would be no need for comment here. The words "force" and "energy" occur in physics, but there they are given precise meanings which forever separate them from the vague anthropomorphic associations which Peter is attempting to play on. The sentence is false. Whatever Peter is likely to mean by "the eternal power of life and spirit," etc., the words as used by the physicists do not mean that.
Josef Pieper, a contemporary metaphysical philosopher, attempts to show that, not only is leisure of present importance to the spiritual development of Western culture, but that even in the earliest period it was the foundation of it. "That much, at least," he says, "can be learnt from the first chapter of Aristotle's Metaphysics." He goes on, "And even the history of the word attests the fact: for leisure in Greek is skole, and in Latin scola, the English 'school.' The word used to designate the place where we educate and teach is derived from the word which means 'leisure.' 'School' does not, properly speaking, mean school, but leisure." (Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture, trans. Alexander Dru, with an introduction by T. S. Eliot, Pantheon Books Inc., New York, pp. 25-26).	One learns something from the first chapter of Aristotle's Metaphysics or any other place in any other book of argument, only if the author's arguments are valid and his premises true. Otherwise, see #15. If Mr. Pieper had been content, in his use of etymology, to limit himself to his statement that the "history of the word attests the fact," leisure in its relation to schooling would have constituted supporting evidence of a sort. But he was not content with this. The last sentence is something of a wonder. If "school" does not mean school, how can "leisure" mean leisure or "Pieper" mean Pieper or any word mean anything? "Properly speaking," indeed, clearly does not mean properly speaking. A translation: The English word for school derives from a Latin word for leisure. But this has already been said. Presumably Mr. Pieper is not advising his readers to begin using the word "school" to stand for leisure, but wishes them to remember that the etymology of "school" shows an early understanding of the connection between leisure and education. Thus the use of "mean" in the last sentence is rhetorical, a matter of emphasis, but is concealed in the notorious ambiguity of that term. It is true that Pieper does not use the term in giving the etymologies. If he had written," 'Skole meant leisure in Greek," etc., the shift would be very evident. For another example relying on the ambiguity of "mean" see #45.