A few days back I wrote a humble piece on oxymorons.
Today I return to you with two genuine oxymoronic fallacies for your consideration.
It was a couple years back that I stumbled across the fallacy of the "true story".
"Story", surely, is at worst fictional, and at best purely from the subjective of an individual. This dictates that fundamentally, a story can never be true.
An oxymoron then?
It my suggestion, then, that we replace the phrase "a true story" with "a factual re-telling of events".
Questions? Anyone? No?
Then it is settled.
The second fallacy I bring to your attention is phrase, perhaps not so often used these days, but the meaning still resonates.
The "Gospel truth" is something we take to mean "unquestionably true". To me, however, the "gospel" would be hard pressed to find itself any further from the truth.
This won't do.
I propose that this phrase be changed to a "gospel lie". A gospel lie is something that idiots believe is true, but those of us with functioning brains can see is rubbish.
Let me give you an example:
"Gillian McKeith gives sound practical advice about nutrition"
"That is what we call a gospel lie, Timmy, now, back to your crayons"
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