"You cannot speak of reason to the Dane And lose your voice"

Owen and Felix aren't particularly interested in their own school, but they love to do James' work.

James is in the second book of a Logic course called "Critical Thinking." Logic used to be his favorite subject, back when he just had to solve a logic puzzle every day. Then we started this formal course and entered the world of contrapositives and double negations. He doesn't it like it quite so much anymore.

But Owen and Felix love it. Whenever James and I are working on logic they stop attending to whatever it is that they are supposed to be working on and listen in to his problems.

"Evaluate the following advertisement: Harry Handsome, the movie actor, is shown slapping SMELLY after-shave lotion on. Four beautiful women come up and put their arms around him. "We just can't resist a man who uses SMELLY!" says one of the women."

James: "Is this from my propaganda techniques section?"

Owen: "It's an assumption contrary to fact!"

Felix: "NO! It's a substitution of a contrary fact!"

(Correct answer: It's the propaganda technique of Transfer, and not Testimonial, because Harry Handsome never actually says anything.)

Owen and Felix are both convinced that they are great logicians, partly because they really HAVE picked up on some of the technical bits of language about propositions that have evaded James. They hunt for fallacies in the wider world (apparently so far as Junior Choir rehearsal) and happily point them out to unsuspecting adults. 

If you are challenged by a shrill and self-righteous junior logician, please feel free to remind them that their argument is a Red Herring from the schoolwork that they are supposed to be doing.