Ali Almossawi - An Illustrated Book of Loaded Language: Learn to Hear Whats Left Unsaid (Bad Arguments)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR

Ali Almossawis first book, An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments, has been enjoyed by over three million readers online and in print. He holds a masters in engineering systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a masters in software engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Ali has worked at Harvard, where his research involved creating predictive models of source code quality, and at the MIT Media Lab, where he contributed to data visualization projects. His work has appeared in several publications, including Scientific American, Wired, and Fast Company. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and daughter.

Almossawi.com
BookofBadArguments.com

Alejandro Giraldo holds a degree in graphic design from UPB Medelln and a masters in art direction from ELISAVA (the Barcelona School of Design and Engineering). He runs the clothing company Velmost and works as a freelance illustrator. He lives in Medelln, Colombia.

AlejoGiraldo.com

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acclaim for

AN ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF BAD ARGUMENTS

I love this illustrated book of bad arguments. A flawless compendium of flaws.ALICE ROBERTS, PhD, anatomist, writer, and presenter of The Incredible Human Journey

Bad arguments, great illustrations... gorgeous.CORY DOCTOROW, BoingBoing.net

A very good book every scientist should have. Every scholar, really.
HOPE JAHREN, author of Lab Girl

Seriously, An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments should be on every school curriculum. Twitter will be a more civil place.KEVIN TANG, BuzzFeed

A great primer for anyone looking to understand logical fallacies.... Pass it along to the arguersgood and badin your life.LAUREN DAVIS, io9.com

Now more than ever, you need this.DAN SOLOMON, Fast Company

Share [this book] with your friends. Encourage your family members to flip through it. Casually leave copies in public places.JENNY BRISTOL, GeekDad.com

[A] wonderful primer on the logical fallacies that have been screwing up our thinking... since shortly after the invention of dirt.RON KRETSCH, DangerousMinds.net

Also by Ali Almossawi

An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments

Bad Choices: An Illustrated Introduction to Computational Thinking

The Point of Pointless Work

AN ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF LOADED LANGUAGE
Copyright 2021 by Ali Almossawi

A Cover Is Not The Book
from MARY POPPINS RETURNS
Music by Marc Shaiman
Lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman
2018 Walt Disney Music Company
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request

ISBN 978-1-61519-840-5
Ebook ISBN 978-1-61519-841-2

Cover design by Beth Bugler
Text design by Jack Dunnington
Illustrations by Alejandro Giraldo

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing November 2021
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my father

That the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world... frightens me much more than bombs.

George Orwell

A Quick Introduction:
The Subtle Ways Language Influences Thought

Oh hello! Mr. Rabbit here. Im pleased to meet you. You might be wondering how Ive reached this, ahem, honorable old age. Ill tell you: Careful listening is essential for a rabbitand today, sneaky language is more prevalent than ever. Its prevalent in everyday conversations, in newspapers and websites of record, in posts shared by influential people, and in speeches by eloquent intellectuals. It colors how we perceive our world. Youre holding a compendium of this kind of rhetoricnot only whats said out loud, but also whats left unsaid.

One reason rhetorical sleight of hand gets past us is that, when listening to someone speak, we tend to focus on whether we like that person rather than whether they are making any sense. Another reason is that our brains, by nature, process information differently based on context. Consider two well-known effects:

Priming. In a video that made the rounds online, a fun-loving group is sitting in a living room. Without showing any visuals, one of them asks anotheran English major, no lessto pronounce T-W-A, which she does phonetically. He asks her to pronounce T-W-I, which she does, the same way. Then onto T-W-O, at which point her increasingly peculiar attempts leave everyone in stitches. Other videos of that sort of gag are aplenty.

Whats interesting here is that our English major is using instincts that normally serve her well to try to answer a seemingly simple question. But, the information shes given at the start proves debilitating as she attempts to reason through what follows, all to great comedic effect. People are sensitive to what came just before!

Framing. In the classic example of framing, two groups of participants were asked to choose between two treatments for an imaginary disease that is about to kill 600 people:

Group 1 chose between A) a treatment that saves 200 people, and B) a treatment with a one-third chance of saving all 600 and a two-thirds chance of saving no one.

Group 2 chose between A) a treatment that causes 400 people to die, and B) a treatment with a two-thirds chance of causing all 600 to die and a one-third chance of causing no one to die.