Two common slips

Two slips turn up in almost every heated argument. The first is the straw man: answering a distorted, easier version of what was said. "You want fewer cars downtown? So you want to ban cars." Nobody said ban.

The second is attacking the person instead of the point. "You would say that — you don't even drive." Whether someone drives does not make their reasons better or worse.

Naming a slip gently — "I don't think I said ban" — usually works better than naming it loudly. The aim is to get back to the real disagreement, not to score a point.