Word/phrase/idiom to describe avoiding answering a question by stating the question doesn't need to be asked

Question

I run into this situation often in the office. I have a specific question to ask somebody and have chosen the person to ask it, but that person doesn't know the answer.

Instead of answering the question, however, they choose to attack the question itself and increase the scope of the discussion to find a way to avoid having to answer it:

Example:

Asker: I'm not sure if Google Maps has picked the best route to McDonalds. What do you think of this route?

Responder: You can get to Burger King faster, and the food it better.

What has the responder done? I was thinking of strawman fallacy (logic), unasking the question (zen), etc. But none of these exactly fit.

Answer 1

One relevant term from logic:

red herring — The idiom "red herring" is used to refer to something that misleads or distracts from the relevant or important issue.

Specific forms of red herring exist and I find that appeal to motive fits nicely:

appeal to motive — Appeal to motive is a pattern of argument which consists in challenging a thesis by calling into question the motives of its proposer. It can be considered as a special case of the ad hominem circumstantial argument. As such, this type of argument may be an informal fallacy.

The person who answers that you should go to Burger King instead is assuming that your motive for asking the question is that you want to get something to eat. This is an invalid assumption and, therefore, their answer is completely irrelevant.

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More informally, this pattern of behavior is simply known as "dodging the question":

dodging the question — Question dodging is the intentional avoidance of answering a question.

On that wiki page they have a list of example forms and these seem particularly apt. In response to the question, "Why are you here?":

• Answering things that weren't asked ("I'm in the corridor.")
• Questioning the question ("Are you sure that's relevant?")
• Challenging the question ("You assume I am here for a reason.")
• Giving an answer in the wrong context ("Because I was born.")

The motive for dodging the question in your example is that they don't know the answer. Thus, they answer a different question.

Answer 2

You might consider this as a case of ignoratio elenchi, where an irrelevant argument is presented as an answer to the question at hand:

Ignoratio elenchi, also known as irrelevant conclusion, is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may or may not be logically valid, but fails nonetheless to address the issue in question.

[...] The nature of the fallacy, then, consists in substituting for a certain issue another which is more or less closely related to it, and arguing the substituted issue.

It seems a little grandiose for what you're describing but is a good fit nevertheless.

Answer 3

I'm not entirely sure that this is the word you're looking for, but it's a good place to start:

non sequitur

Look under the section called In everyday speech.

The response in you post doesn't prerfectly qualify as a non sequitur, though, because there actually is some connection to the original question.

The link points to a concept called derailment that seems to be a cognitive problem, but the word fits well in this context. To derail a conversation means to interrupt it so that it goes off topic.

Answer 4

The term is conversational implicature. The responder has inferred from the questioner's question that the relevant topic of conversation is "How can I get to a place serving fast food quickly?" and answered appropriately.

Answer 5

The main thing which the person has done is not some technical manipulation of a question; this person has tried steer the conversation to his favorite topic -- himself, and his opinions and preferences -- by dropping a shift response. There doesn't seem to be a glib word or phrase for "attempt to steer conversation toward oneself", though. In general, using one topic as a springboard into another one is a segue. That coworker used your topic about how to get to McDonald's to segue into opining about his or her preference for Burger King.

Someone who steers conversation toward himself (specifically, his superior wit and better grasp of the "bigger picture") by constantly looking for the "real problem" that someone is trying to solve, and offering supposedly superior alternatives which avoid the specific question, is a "smart ass" or "smart alec". The latter can be used as a verb: "smart alecing/alecking".

Answer 6

What you have asked versus the example that you gave are 2 unrelated things.

Some good answers have been posted about your example. Personally I believe that, as an earlier poster mentioned, segue pretty much "hits the nail on the head".

However, your question is not talking about this at all. To relate your example with your question the respondent would need to say something like:

"That's a dumb question" or "Your question has no merit" or possibly responding with the rhetorical question "Why would you want to go to McDonald's anyway?"

In all three of these cases, you have posed a question and the response is a premise without argument (indirectly in the case of of the third example response which is a rhetorical question or in other words a question that expects no response and is merely trying to assert a premise - that being that your question shouldn't be asked).

In the world of logic a premise on its own without arguments leading to a conclusion that supports the given premise is laughable and shrugged aside. It is a symptom of a lack of understanding, ignorance or foolhardiness.

The person is acting as a demagogue attempting to get their point across not by reasoning rather by volume, repetition, or in this case mocking you or interposing a premise in an effort to block your query. I can't think of an idiom that exactly matches your original question. It is close to tautological reasoning but that doesn't quite cover it.

To me, it exemplifies ignorance. The person should lend a little more credence to "no question is a stupid question". Of course, one thing someone who deals in premises without reasoning would probably do is take "no question is a stupid question" and apply another logical fallacy "Reductio ad absurdum" and come up with a ridiculous question to prove that there is such a thing as a stupid question, completely ignoring the spirit of the above idiom.

Answer 7

• floundering (v.) — to proceed to act clumsily or ineffectually (if he doesn't know the answer).
• obfuscation (v.) — to make obscure or confuse (if he knows the answer).
• smoke screen (n.) — something designed to obscure, confuse or mislead.

Answer 8

The responder is a politician, this is a special breed of human that is able to ask inane off topic questions that are irrelevant to a conversation while avoiding answering the question that required a direct answer in order to move the conversation forward. The politician often employs similar feats of avoidance with techniques such as kissing babies, sticking to a script, using the familiar "no comment" and the critically acclaimed filibuster. These techniques can be enhanced with the addition of props to further hide from answering the question among the most useful of these is the teleprompter. They are often found exhibiting avoidance of duties as well as questions such as holding hearings on steroid use in baseball rather than pass a budget.

In your example the responder has used the Lobbyist's Gambit. This technique is only used to when it is necessary to oppose any debate in favor of a Lobby with which they have a "quid pro quo" relationship.

See also fanboi, a similar creature that would have responded with the following variation:

You can get to Burger King faster, and Maps on iPhone is better