Fallacy of accent
The fallacy of accent is a verbal fallacy that reasons from two different vocal readings of the same written words. In English, the fallacy typically relies on prosodic stress, the emphasis given to a word within a phrase, or a phrase within a sentence. The fallacy has also been extended to grammatical ambiguity caused by missing punctuation.
History
Among the thirteen types of fallacies in his book Sophistical Refutations, Aristotle lists a fallacy he calls wikt:προσῳδία, later translated in Latin as accentus. He gives as an example:The fallacy turns here on the varying pronunciation of ου, meaning "where" in the first and third occurrences, and "not" in the second. These would later be distinguished in writing with Ancient [Greek grammar#Diacritics|diacritics], but they were not in Aristotle's time.
Aristotle noted that fallacies of this form were rare in contemporary Greek. They are rarer still in languages like English that have fewer heteronyms. Accordingly, English commentary has tended either to omit the fallacy or to reinterpret it as a fallacy of varying word emphasis. By varying the emphasis in "All men are created equal," for example, one might argue that men are created equal, or that men are created equal. Broadening the fallacy in this manner has met with occasional criticism.