LCR: Amphibolies

Later in the course we will discuss fallacies that arise from grammatical ambiguities. One such is called an amphiboly, which sounds like a wiggly amphibian, but is actually a case of drawing a conclusion based on the wrong horn of an interpretive dilemma. This morning's paper suggested one such to my warped eye. The caption to a photograph on the front page of the Berkshire Eagle reads in part:  "Drew Peterson Convicted; The former police officer is found guilty of murdering his third wife..." and it occurred to me immediately to wonder why they hadn't done anything about it when he murdered the first two (if you said "I just ate my third cookie," people would naturally assume you had in fact eaten the other two...). Of course, so far as we know he did not murder his first two wives, though as it turns out this case was launched only after his fourth wife disappeared, leading to suspicions about the death of the third. It would probably be a strong induction, and not a fallacy, to conclude that if he were to propose to a prospective fifth wife, she should just say no.