bad arguments

bad arguments

What Should We Call the “Appeal to Chatbot” in Latin?

a steep-sided valley in a temperate rainforest with a creek at the bottom
Douglas Creek where it flows through PKOLS Park, Saanich. Photo by Sean Manning, March 2026.

The Latin language is always expanding. Sometimes this is easy, as when it picked up gladius “sword” from Celtic and sclopetum “arquebus, smoothbore gun” from Italian. Other times it is hard and you have to invent a new word or phrase. Sometimes you even think for a long time and decide that crisare “to shake one’s hips” is good enough substitute for to twerk. Trying to settle an argument by pulling out a dictionary is an argumentum ad dictionarium. What should we call trying to settle an argument by quoting a chatbot?

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