There has to be a word for this.

[theweaselking]

It's probably 90 characters long and German. But there still has to be a word for "I think you're wrong. I think you have a point, I think you had made arguments worth addressing, I think you have properly addressed some things in a perfectly sensible way - but I also think you are wrong in some specifics, and those specifics matter to the point of, if not invalidating your thesis, then distinguishing your immediate specific topic from being covered by your general thesis."

Basically, imagine a statement: 'Romantic comedies are stalkery. All of them involve creepy stalking behaviours. This "non-rom-com that mocks rom-com behaviours in a way that makes it clear that stalky rom-coms are creepy" is creepy because it has all the normal stalky rom-com behaviours!'

The complainant is missing the specific point, while absolutely NAILING the general point.

Is there a word for this?

Comments

[haate.livejournal.com]

I'm going to say "you've weaselkinged it"

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Given that I self-evidently won't see my own problems in this regard, this doesn't seem to be a useful metric *for me*.

And it's my blog, I'm looking for useful-to-me answers. Dammit.

[falconwarrior.livejournal.com]

I don't get what's going on in the complaint you gave as an example.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

"X, which criticizes behaviour Y, should itself be criticized because it shows anything of behaviour Y. I am going to ignore that X shows behaviour Y in a negative light and also that X had to show behaviour Y in order to criticize it effectively."

[thornae.livejournal.com]

How about "that's a Wicker Man argument"?

It hangs together in a loomingly coherent manner, but is being employed for utterly invalid purposes, despite the best intentions of the arguer.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I'd summarise the example statement as "can't see the wood for the trees".

[lorelein.livejournal.com]

There is a word that's not exactly what you've described, but it reminds me of something similar - it's "doch!" My understanding is that it's difficult to translate into English, but this is close: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/doch Basically if the first person says something negative then the second person says "Doch, yes it's true!"

[eris.livejournal.com]

That is fabulous, I've heard it but didn't understand it from context, I have learnt a new word!

[jaundicedaye.livejournal.com]

Robert Anton Wilson invented one in"Maybe Logic": "Sombunall" for "Some but not all". It was his assertion that eliminating categorical modifiers would go a long way toward reducing acrimony.

[rickbooth.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what the answer to your question is, but I do want to see the non-rom-com you mention (if it exists other than as a platonic ideal). Did you have an exemplar in mind?

[hwrnmnbsol.livejournal.com]

The word I use for this is 'yabbut', as in 'yeah, but...'. It means a general agreement as to conclusions but a lack of agreement on the details. Because many people do not want to enter into arguments regarding niggling details, 'yabbut' is often the end of the sentence. A conversation might progress thusly:

[A] Romantic comedies are stalkery. All of them involve creepy stalking behaviours. This "non-rom-com that mocks rom-com behaviours in a way that makes it clear that stalky rom-coms are creepy" is creepy because it has all the normal stalky rom-com behaviours!

[B] Yabbut.

EITHER

[A] Well at least we agree. (topic shift)

OR

[A] What do you mean?

[B] Well, let's look at rom-coms, stalky behavior and Venn Diagrams....