TASTING NOTES FOR THE LOGICALLY CHALLENGED
Plurium interrogationum is the Latin term for a question containing a disguised or concealed presupposition.
If a person hearing the question mistakenly accepts the presupposition as established fact, then s/he has swallowed a fallacy in one gulp without savouring the complex notes.
Examples of such loaded questions are legion. For example, When did you stop peeing in the swimming pool? and Would you rather this architectural masterpiece became a luxury hotel or a ruin?
The first presupposes that the interrogee ever even began peeing in the swimming pool, and cannot logically be answered without appearing to concede that one did. (Which I didn't, as I made clear to the lifeguard.) The second presupposes that ruin is the necessary consequence of rejecting the hotel. Draw your own conclusions.
Peeing on the hotel is not an option. Do keep up.
Fortunately, such brain-twisting loaded questions are a rarity today … except, among many other places, on Broughton Street where Villeneuve Wines are trying something very similar not for the first time.
