Not THE Monty Python?

An Argument
By Ernest Hemmingway

The door gave way as I turned the knob slowly. It was a heavy door, but it opened quietly. The room was dark. The air was heavy. A man sat at a desk. The desk looked heavy, weighted down with papers.

“Argument?” I asked.

“Told you already.”I got mad. “When?””Just now.”

“Didn’t.”

“Did.”

I drove a punch across his jaw. Blood shot out of the corner of his mouth. It smeared on his white shirt. I thought I felt a tooth, maybe several, give way. My hand began to hurt immediately.

“That’s not an argument. That’s contradiction.”Welcome to the Argument Clinic
By Kurt Vonnegut

Listen.

An argument is something different. Unique. It’s a series of interconnected statements of fact or opinion intended to defend or attack a particular position. Its not contradiction. He, the man Trout went to see, his feet encased in the plastic goo that the Paradise river had become, thought contradiction was an argument.

It wasn’t. Any more than a certain bird makes a call in the morning that sounds like this:Poooteeeeweeeet!

The Argument
By William Faulkner

The warm weather came early to Yokhopna County and I felt myself stirring the way one does when the sun hits you and you begin to shake the cold cloak of winter off. All the happy memories of the last year, the ones you thought would never again see as you sat over a frozen chamber pot in February, come flooding back to you.

I got a ride into town. Back of Vic’s old Dodge. I smelled vaguely of dead chickens, but that was ok. He stopped a couple of blocks from the clinic. I got out, thanked him. I didn’t mind walking ‘cause I didn’t want him to feel embarrassed on account of stopping in front of the clinic.

The front hallway was cool and dark, compared to the hot dry street outside. I found the right room and went in. There was some ice tea in a pitcher on a table. The pitcher was sweating profusely and the man in the corner was too.

“Is this the right place?” I asked, “Is this the right room for an argument?””Done told you one.” He answered in a quiet drawl.

I was confused. I had just stepped in and there wasn’t anyway he had said anything to me yet. The office, the whole building was quiet and besides, I have pretty good hearing to boot.

No Dog No!
By Dr. Seuss

I say yes,
You say no,
I say blue,
It isn’t so.

You say.

Pay up,
You haven’t paid.
You’re past your time, and yet you’ve stayed.
The fight is over.
Argument’s done.
It’s worth the money.
Have you had fun.

Now run along,
But wait, just now.
That was never a five minute row.

Ta tumm te tumm and drum your fingers,
While I argue on and lingers.
Now hold on that was not the time.
It was say you, you paid your dime,
You’ve said your peace, you’ve made your point.
Now get your tuckus out of my joint.

But if I’m wrong and if we’re done,
How come you keep on making some,
Points and notions, premise, conclusion,
Am I not done, to my exclusion?

Then you hurl me an abusement,
Fighting for your own amusement!