Name calling

Short description: A pejorative meaning that should insult a person

Name-calling is a form of argument in which insulting or demeaning labels are directed at an individual or group. This phenomenon is studied by a variety of academic disciplines such as anthropology, child psychology, and political science. It is also studied by rhetoricians, and a variety of other disciplines.

## In politics and public opinion

Politicians sometimes resort to name-calling during political campaigns or public events with the intentions of gaining advantage over, or defending themselves from, an opponent or critic. Often such name-calling takes the form of labelling an opponent as an unreliable and untrustworthy source, such as use of the term "flip-flopper".

## Common misconceptions

Gratuitous verbal abuse or "name-calling" is not on its own an example of the abusive argumentum ad hominem logical fallacy.[1][2][3][4][5] The fallacy occurs only if personal attacks are employed to devalue a speaker's argument by attacking the speaker; personal insults in the middle of an otherwise sound argument are not fallacious ad hominem attacks.

## References

1. ↑ "The Ad Hominem Fallacy Fallacy". Plover.net. http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html.
2. ↑ "Logical Fallacy: Argumentum ad Hominem". Fallacyfiles.org. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html.
3. ↑ Ad hominem fallacy, Logical Fallacies, Formal and Informal, Independent Individualist.
4. ↑ "AdHominem". Drury.edu. http://www.drury.edu/ess/Logic/Informal/AdHominem.html.
5. ↑ "Logical Fallacies» Ad Hominem (Personal Attack)". Logicalfallacies.info. http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/ad-hominem/.

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