epitrope

Definition:

An argumentative strategy (an ironic type of concession) by which a speaker either pretends to express agreement with an opponent or encourages an opponent to do something that the speaker actually objects to. See also: paromologia.

Etymology:

From the Greek, "the power to decide"

Examples and Observations:

• "'Go right ahead!' cackled the old man gleefully. 'Go ahead! Go right on ahead and hit an eighty-year-old man--that's about all you're able to do, with your big college education!"
  (Charles Beaumont, The Intruder, 1959)



• "We can distinguish between what might be called weak and strong forms of the epitrope. In the weak case, an arguer will accept the terms that the opposition introduces into the debate (terms can mean figurative or argumentative strategies). . . .
  
  "In the strong case of epitrope, an arguer will appear to accept a claim introduced by the opposition. Here is a brief example. In defending the death penalty, Jacob Sullum agreed with his anti-death penalty opponents that one potential problematic issue was

  the inconsistent application of the death penalty. To pick just one notorious example, isn't it unjust to give Hillside strangler Angelo Buono--who kidnapped, tortured, and murdered nine women--a life sentence, while sending [convicted killer Robert Alton] Harris to death row? Yes, but the injustice is not in executing Harris; it's in failing to execute Buono.

  In this passage from the June 1990 issue of Reason magazine, Sullum's apparent agreement with the opposition's claim that it is unjust to execute one individual while allowing other convicted killers to live was turned against the opposition; the injustice, Sullum asserted, was in not executing both of these murderers."
  (James Jasinski, Sourcebook on Rhetoric, Sage, 2001)