Word: absurdum
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Thus we observe the reduction ad absurdum of the premise that the view of any individual or any majority is ipso facto absolute. The best that can be said for a majority opinion is that it is a majority opinion under which the policy of the nation should be provisionally ordered. For always the dictatorial tendencies of a majority should be subject to the check of a wakeful minority aspiring to power...
Such a program seems to us the reductio ad absurdum of the theory that a student can be frightened into more effective studying by frequent mechanical check-ups... To impose a universal system studded with terms such as main heads, sub-heads, illustrations, etc., is a waste of time and effort...
Biggest thing in the sculpture room was the late Gaston Lachaise's tiptoeing, steatopygous, nude, Standing Woman; one of the smallest was still the reductio ad absurdum of John B. Flannagan's solid, amusingly diminutive Elephant...
...Hanson's theory was a simple reductio ad absurdum with which neither publishers, Guild nor common practice agree. The Act sets 44 hours as the maximum work week, requires overtime payment at one and one-half times the regular salary rate. But out-of-town assignments are part of the normal duties of many a reporter, and while some Guild contracts require twelve hours' pay for each day away from home, any newshawk who tried to collect 24 hours on the same basis would soon be laughed...
...whole matter finally reached a reductio ad absurdum when it was discovered that at least one of the men singled out by the practical joker has been a group one man for two years...