A field guide to the ways reasoning breaks
Broken structure
Also called Prosodic emphasis
Changing the meaning of a statement by where the stress or emphasis falls.
We should not speak badly of colleagues, implying it is fine to speak badly of others.
Read the sentence flat, with no emphasis, and check what it actually asserts.
Traced to Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, which listed it as prosōidía — prosody — later rendered in Latin as accentus. Aristotle's case turned on Greek words that looked identical when written without accents; English keeps the fallacy alive through stress and emphasis instead.
An anchor says the minister did not praise the opposition's proposal, with a stress that implies he criticized it — the transcript shows no such thing.
In a headline, 'Manager denies employee was fired for reporting safety issues' reads differently depending on which word the reader's eye dwells on.
A coworker repeats 'I never said SHE handled the budget badly' loudly enough to redirect suspicion onto one person without lying once.
A prosecutor stresses 'You PARKED the car that night' so the jury hears an accusation of intent the witness never made.