When employees are complacent, we hear phrases such as 'well, we've always done it this way' or 'why make a change, the old way still works.' Urgency is the opposite of complacency. Ultimately, your organization's conventional wisdom makes things more efficient. Grace Hopper - Wikiquote Therefore dogs are bad. The British general Sir Charles Napier, during his deployment in India in the 1840s, attended the funeral pyre of a local dignitary, when he, to his horror, saw the wife of the deceased being led onto the pyre. When the arguer seeks sensational or sentimental reactions in the audience; bases an argument on feelings (especially pity or fear), often to draw attention away from the real issues or to conceal another purpose. This argument uses any sort of weak, cause and effect connection as the basis of the argument. An article about new laws in the U.S. concerning data processing (DP) and privacy included an interview with Grace Murray Hopper who employed an instance of the saying. Author Laura Wallis PMID: 23190655 DOI: Therefore, it is the right way. A red herring is something irrelevant that is raised to deflect attention. Additional thanks to M. R. Heath who pointed out some interesting precursors.). This is an argument based on the assumption that a collective whole will necessarily share all of the characteristics of its individual pieces. Apocryphal? So the statement, "But we've always done it this way," should be looked at as an opportunity for dialogue, education, and collaboration rather than an announcement that a person is not open to change. I am trying to determine if she crafted the following astute remark: The most dangerous phrase in the language is, Weve always done it this way., Quote Investigator: The earliest strong match located by QI appeared in the periodical Computerworld in 1976. It is often characterized by phrases such as "we have always done it this way", and occurs especially frequently in discussions about political and religious issues. Audience is distracted by arguer drawing unnecessary attention to the sources instead of the argument. If this person is arguing, say, why a project must be aware of a certain risk, and you dismiss them because theyre always complaining, youre making a logical fallacy. The treatise remains a definitive study of the subject. This is our article in the Art to Argument series, which teaches logical fallacies and techniques of persuasion. Grace Murray Hopper. The Most Expensive Words in the English Language Every business and industry has flawed legacy systems. Appeal to tradition - Wikipedia Hopper's many accomplishments and accolades earned her the nickname "Amazing Grace.". This is the argument against transitioning to the metric systems in remaining countries using imperial measurements like the United States. "We don't eat ham! We don't need any more bookshelves. Premise 1: If Portland is the capital of Maine, then it is in Maine. End of the day comes, bananas are picked and they're back at the house enjoying a cold beer. Logical Fallacies or Fallacies in Argumentation | carm,org