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What's the word for when I present a graph to support my point but it refutes it?

I guess its shooting myself in the foot. But I want a better term.

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You could say:

The graph backfired on me.

Backfire (verb): (of a plan) to have the opposite result from the one you intended.
[Cambridge English Dictionary]


Boomerang or recoil would also work well.

Boomerang (verb): If a plan boomerangs, it brings a harmful result instead of the intended good one.

Our plan to take over the business could boomerang on us if we're not careful.
[Cambridge English Dictionary]

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    Both to the point, to a nicety.
    – LPH
    Commented Sep 25, 2020 at 4:22
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It seems that the term "self-defeating" could express what you need.

(OALD) /ˌself dɪˈfiːtɪŋ/ (BrE, AmE) ​causing more problems and difficulties instead of solving them; not achieving what you wanted to achieve but having an opposite effect

  • Paying children too much attention when they misbehave can be self-defeating.
  • It becomes self-defeating to go on wrangling about tactics.
  • (for instance) Unfortunately, I came up with a self-defeating graph and couldn't prove my point.
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Hoisted by your own petard.

"Hoisted by your own petard" is an idiom for when you try to do something, and it backfires on you to your detriment.

The phrase comes from warfare in the late medieval period, following the discovery of gunpowder; they would create bombs called petards by filling a barrel with gunpowder. These bombs would then be carried up to the wall of a castle or other fortification before being set off; however, they were quite hazardous, and on occasion they would detonate prematurely, killing the person carrying it and launching their remains through the air.

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  • This phrase is used directly by Hamlet, after he kills Polonius, to describe how his trickery (hiding behind the curtain) led to his death (Hamlet stabbed him through the fabric). By the way, since I'm going for pedant-of-the-week, I have to point out that gunpowder was invented, not discovered. We discover that which already exists in nature but was previously unobserved, such as helium or Pluto. Technologies, that would never have existed but for human ingenuity, are invented.
    – Oscar Bravo
    Commented Sep 25, 2020 at 15:43

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