logodaedaly

— In questions of philosophy or divinity, that have occupied the learned, I could bring ten instances of logodaedaly, or verbal legerdemain, which have perilously confirmed prejudices, and withstood the advancement of truth, in consequence of the neglect of verbal debate, i. e. strict discussion of terms.

— ...During his flight, he said, he commenced an interesting train of speculation On why there happened to be such a word as defenestration. There is not, he said, a special word for being rolled down a roof into a gutter; There is no verb to describe the action of beating a man to death with a putter; No adjective exists to qualify a man bound to the buffer of the 12.10 to Ealing, No abstract noun to mollify a man hung upside down by his ankles from the ceiling. Why, then, of all the possible offences so distressing to humanitarians, Should this one alone have caught the attention of the verbarians? I concluded (said McIndoe) that the incidence of logodaedaly was purely adventitious...