Accent

The fallacy of accent is when you change what a sentence means by stressing different words. The words are the same but the message changes. In speech, emphasis can disambiguate; in writing, the same sentence can be read in different ways. The fallacy is to use this ambiguity to mislead—e.g. quoting someone with an accent that changes the meaning, or interpreting a written sentence in the way that suits you when another reading was intended. The remedy is to fix the intended stress or context.

Examples

• I never said she stole the money.

• We should not speak ill of our friends.

• The contract says we will pay on delivery.

• She only said she might come.