138 How to Win Every Argument'You never remember my birthday.'
'Did I ever tell you what beautiful eyes you have?'You should never set out upon a weak argument without a
pocketful of red herrings to sustain you through the course of it.
As your intellectual energies begin to fail, your supply of them
will give you breathing space. If you aspire to the ranks of the
experts you should select your red herrings on the basis of the
known interests of your audience. Every pack has its favourite
aroma; and your red herrings should be chosen with that in
mind. As you toss them out as needed, the audience will be
unable to resist their favourite bait. You can gain respite in the
most difficult situations by skilfully introducing the subject of the
arguer's bad back, or even his summer holidays. In real des-
peration you can bring up his pet cat.
Refuting the example
Examples are often adduced in support of an argument. When
attention is focused on showing the example to be a false one,
but leaving the central thesis unchallenged, the fallacy is known
as 'refuting the example'.'Teenagers are very bad-mannered these days. That boy from next door
nearly knocked me over in the street yesterday, and didn't even stay to
apologize. '
'You're wrong. Simon is no longer a teenager.'
(None of which knocks over the original assertion, only one
example.)While an example can illustrate and reinforce an argument,
the discrediting of it does not discredit the argument itself. There