Gift Returning

I think we're both wrong. you were wrong initially, and I was wrong in my refutation, and you were subsequently still in the wrong. What I said was, in other words, that the word 'gift' most commonly represents something that is given as a symbol of sentimentality. There, we have cleared that up in one sentence. "Also, my opponent believes I'm abusing the term "gift. " He's saying that because most people would not consider a bomb a gift, it cannot be a gift, despite the authority of the gifter to assign a meaning. It does provoke one to wonder, if not just anything can be considered a gift, then what rules something a gift? " A gift is something that is intended to be to the recipients benefit and well being. Certainly nothing that is intended to cause the recipient harm could be termed a gift. Why can't you reassign the meaning? Well, contrary to your argument that because both people "are only human" that it is fine for them as equal authorities to reassign meaning, the argument actually works against you. If they are of equal authority then on what authority can the recipient reassign the givers meaning? If the gift giver gave their gift in a spirit of thanks - lets say the recipient helped them out in some way - the gift giver wanted to thank them and so gave them a gift to show it, then on what grounds can the recipient reassign the meaning of the gifting to one of bribery, for talking's sake? The gift-giver gave their gift as a token of thanks. The recipient reassigned the meaning of the gift to mean that the giver was trying to bribe them. On what grounds does another human have to reassign the meaning carried out by another? They can wilfully reinterpret to their hearts content, but to reassign the actual meaning is impossible. I don't believe I have any need to "correct" my own arguments. I believe the problem in this case lies squarely with yourself. "My opponent is saying that I've actually not been arguing as much in terms of reason as I have been in terms of terms. " Well, the question of "whether or not it should be widely socially acceptable to return materials gifted to someone through a present back to where the materials were bought from. " isn't going to be settled by arguing over rhetorical devices, the meaning of Common Sense (capitalised, for sirs pleasure), what a euphemism is or the true meaning of the word 'representation' now, is it? It seems that you are arguing everything but the resolution. "My opponent keeps pointing out how I've deployed, or rather, "employed" several rhetorical devices. Very observant. But this is a debate. We are supposed to use rhetorical devices. It's very redundant to point out rhetorical devices. " A debate is not merely a showing of wordplay or language or logic command, rather it is more the integration of all these faculties and more to further your argument for a specific resolution. You have sacrificed the letter for the envelope, the food for the packaging. To use your chess analogy, you have sacrificed the strategy for the tactics. The tactics should be used to realise the strategy, aiming for checkmate, but you have just been using disjointed, stand alone tactics with no checkmate in mind. And without a king to give employment and purpose to your rhetorical devices, it is you who have rendered them redundant. Anyway, thanks for your time.