The following is the famous “Battle of Wits” scene from the 1987 comedy The Princess Bride:

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA-AEuXn1eg&hl=en_US

Early on in the scene, the Man in Black says, “Well, if there can be no arrangement, then we are at an impasse.” An impasse is a deadlock or a road, such as a cul-de-sac, that has no outlet.

Here is a snippet of the dialogue from the Battle of Wits:

Man in Black: All right. Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right… and who is dead.

Vizzini: But it’s so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy’s? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

Man in Black: You’ve made your decision then?

Vizzini: Not remotely. Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.

Man in Black: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

Vizzini is demonstrating sophistry (or sophism), “a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning.” (Well, I suppose Vizzini’s errors aren’t so “subtle,” actually).

Sophistry got its name from the Sophists, a group of ancient Greek teachers of philosophy and rhetoric. Sadly, the Sophists’ work comes to us primarily through the writings of their opponents, Plato and Aristotle, which is why sophistry means “deceptive reasoning.”

You probably already know the word fallacy, a logical mistake, but a more unusual word for false reasoning is casuistry.

Like sophistry, casuistry can also mean specious or deceptive reasoning, although its other meaning is “a case-based approach to ethics” — for instance, arguing that stealing could be acceptable if its purpose is to feed one’s starving children. Just as sophistry was given a negative connotation by its opponents, casuistry got its “bad” meaning from those prefer a more principle-based approach to ethics.

The argument, “If you’re hungry, broccoli is better than nothing; nothing is better than a juicy hamburger; therefore, broccoli is better than a juicy hamburger” is pure casuistry. Its apparent syllogistic format obscures the fact that the argument uses the word “nothing” in two very different ways — a common trick of sophists.

Today’s film selection is a classic: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

Despite being a popular name for nightclubs, vertigo is a horrible medical condition characterized by a feeling of spinning (a feeling so violent it can often lead to vomiting and incapacitation). Thus: a terrible name for a nightclub, but a pretty good name for a horror movie.

The more versatile word vertiginous can be used to refer to anything liable to cause vertigo (either literally or metaphorically). For instance:

The fiftieth-floor apartment was a great deal, but she couldn’t take the vertiginous heights.

Successful traders are those who can control their emotions even in a vertiginous financial environment.

On a somewhat related note, the word vortical (not a typo!) means “relating to a vortex.”