In Puritanical philosophy there is a method for arguing which is called "sophistry".
In this technique, the arguer uses a clever so called specific method in which they would use some key points of the other arguer and put them in a loop in a way that the guy gives up (usually because they have said some truths and they had some very tiny conflicts and overlaps with each other and these overlaps which the first arguer has used them in his own favor and defeats the second arguer in this way though this is not what the truth is.
As far as I know, in AmE, people (specially youths or uneducated people) rarely have heard this word sophistry.
Now imagine someone is trying to use this technique in a debate with you. How a native speaker would say such a sentence in English:
- What you do is called sophistry. Don't sophisticating so much.
I feel they do not work at least in modern American English and I'm sure there is an alternative is every day speech vocabulary. I would appreciate it if someone could let me know what is in common use these days which can indicate the matter in my question.
Best Answer
The closest thing I can think of is to chop logic. As this site defines it, it means something like "Using the technical tools of logic in an unhelpful and pedantic manner by focusing on trivial details instead of directly addressing the main issue in a dispute."
It's used like
You are correct that sophisticate is not really used that way; it does not mean "to use sophistry".