Concept in Definition ABC

The concept of equivocation has several uses in our language and a special one in the field of rhetoric that we will address below.

Situation or expression that can have more than one interpretation

Mistaken that one will be called situation or expression that may be understood or interpreted in more than one sense or that gives rise to the appearance of various judgments; meanwhile, it will be the listener of the expression or the witness of the situation in question who will interpret it according to his own way.
“His unclear and confusing explanation led to several misunderstandings.”

The most common and common misunderstanding is the one known as double meaning and that it will precisely originate from a term that has more than one meaning.

Confusion or error

Another recurring use of the word equivocal is as a synonym for concepts such as error, confusion and mistake.

As we know, the error is the false knowledge that someone has about something, that is, they have knowledge about that something but such knowledge appears distorted, For what has been mentioned is that error is differentiated from ignorance, with which it is eventually confused, since the latter supposes the total absence of the knowledge.

“The sudden approach that you have had with Laura can lead to misunderstandings, you should be more careful and be clearer so as not to confuse their feelings.”

As can be easily appreciated from what we have been commenting on, misunderstanding is a situation that almost always causes us problems, some They can affect us personally, others third parties, but they will always generate a state of affairs in which confusion and discomfort.

Figure of speech

And at the behest of the rhetoric, the equivocal, also known as antanaclasis, it is within the literary figures(non-traditional ways of using words, which, although they are used with their original meanings, appear accompanied by particularities that distance them from said traditional use) one of the figures repeating best known and that consists of the deliberate use of polysemic words, that is, of multiple meanings, which as a consequence can lead to the confusion of the recipient in question.

Examples

For example, the term capital can trigger misunderstandings due to its polysemy, being able to unravel it only by knowing the context in which it is used, because capital can be the population chief and head of a state, the heritage that someone holds, the factor of production or a capital letter.

A word with which one usually falls into the rhetorical mistake that we speak and that always causes confusion and can even trigger fights, if it is that it is not interpreted as it should, is superb, because this word has two meanings, one good negative and the other positive, but of course, people are mostly used in our language to use its negative reference that indicates that arrogant is that person who acts haughty and arrogant with everyone, who believes himself infinitely superior to the rest of mortals, then, when someone says of another that he is proud he will immediately think this, for example, nothing good nor cute.

However, there is another reference to this word that is great or magnificent, and so, of course, when someone uses it in this sense, that it is very little known and used, misunderstandings are usually generated and so it is that a person who does not know this meaning may consider and believe that they are speaking ill of him and obviously blush.

Almost everyone when we communicate we want the others, our interlocutors on duty to always understand us clearly, but in In some circumstances, it may happen that someone purposely does not want the other to understand it, then, they can make use of the mistake, the ambiguity that this can produce and thus hide some question that does not want to be known.

The aforementioned ambiguity or confusion that is sought to be generated with someone or others usually has a specific purpose, which is hide information from him, meanwhile, the ideal to achieve this is to use a language that ensures but at the same time is not sufficiently Sure.

Topics in Equívoco