New Sniglet: An Ungument
An ungument is the complete opposite of an argument. And when you compare the difference between an ungument and an argument, you may realise that only an ungument has any merit. An ungument is where two people converse, each of them willing to have their opinion changed by the other person. Contrast this with an argument, where two people, each fixed in their own belief, use rhetoric and device to try and convince an audience that their opponent is wrong in their belief. Unguments are just as feisty as arguments -- as a person may have many objections that need to be overcome before they will gratefully relinquish their old opinion. Once an argument/ungument is concluded you may hear this kind of thought expressed by the loser/winner: "Ah, I lost the argument, yes, but I won the ungument, and know more now than I once did. My fellow ungumenter has a way to go and hopefully one day he can lose his own arguments and gain an ungument for himself."
It's better to win an ungument than an argument.
'Farmer Jeb' on Thu, 15 Nov 2007 07:17:51 GMT, sez: Can you give an example?
'lb' on Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:00:07 GMT, sez: @Jeb
Hmm. i don't really have a particular example ready - but maybe it's exemplified in the socratic method -- particularly as applied by Peter Falk's Lieutenant Columbo when he pauses, seemingly on the brink of agreement with the suspect and he wryly says:
"You know what bothers me?"
Okay -- concrete examples, i've got some -- i think I started an ungument about agile and test driven development earlier in the year:
http://secretgeek.net/agile_v_tdd.asp
http://secretgeek.net/tdd_wttt.asp
'Matt Casto' on Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:19:44 GMT, sez: I think I arderstand...
'Farmer Jeb' on Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:06:44 GMT, sez: I tried to read your "concrete examples" but I got bored just before pasting the 1st URL into my browser. Can't you make up a valid but brief example for my edification?
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