[WikiEN-l] NPOV and alleged phenomenon

[Charles Matthews]

Robin Shannon wrote

> Is the word strawman/strawhorse argument a purely wikimedia thing,
> because i had never heard the phrase before i subscribed to these
> lists?

I was unfamiliar before my UseNet years, and assumed it (strawman) was an
artefact of North American college education (I presume you're in Australia;
I'm in the UK).  A little googling on this reinforces the impression that
this is standard in Composition 101 or suchlike, which hasn't crossed the
Atlantic.  Of course we Brits are second to none at actually doing this; but
we tend to call it "putting words into people's mouths".

Charles