The term dichotomy means cutting in two. The term ‘cutting’ is used to describe the movement of tissue. When you see him as saying that “the dichotomy is stronger than difference”. You have done this/almost done it. (True, except: Dichotomy is the cutting in two or strong difference between two ‘alternatives’; not the alternatives themselves.)

In terms of descriptive language, the OED definition of dichotomy is given in two parts. Do you think the word “dichotomous” deserves a precise usage in this specific sense?

I would tend to employ it in any situation where, for example, I felt it necessary to illustrate that there are two ways of looking at something or an opposing argument. What is a close adjectival synonym to dichotomous, is polarised.

How do I access my E-mail? Why hasn’t Nigel Dodds yet proved himself to be a good leader of Northern Ireland when there has been such a high level of polarisation in the UK’s religions across the last fifty years?

c. -a. a. Are division into two sharply defined or contrasting parts; (Logic) division into two mutually exclusive categories or genera; binary classification. Also: an example of such division.

What does a single person achieve in life? A sharp or paradoxical contrast resulting from such a division; something paradoxical, ambivalent, or contradictory.

What is your opinion on terrorism in general?

Aside from the meaning of “dichotomy” as the phase of the moon we call “half moon” and as a technical term of art in biology meaning a bifurcation, and a definition of the word on the original OED given two definitions of that word. The first is any two-fold partition (i.e. without value or initial value). I.e. No total value of any one. 2) There’s one side, the other, and nothing in between. The second is a twofold division, if yes. To give an example of the latter, the OED cites a source that contrasts the “popular” theological dichotomy of man into body and soul with the Christian/Atheist trichotomy of spirit, body and soul.

The supplement adds to the second definition “something paradoxical or ambivalent” and gives these examples:

By a dichotomy, familiar to us all, a woman needs her own baby to be perfectly normal, and at the same time superior to all other babies.

Their uncritical use of the ‘Communist’ versus ‘Free World’ dichotomy:

The latter example serves to illustrate some of the sense of the charge of false dichotomy when you’re asked to make a choice between two things, which are presented (wrongly) as the only possible choices

If a fish is sharp enough to cleave a domain, then it makes sense that the parts be distinct in the criterion of the cut. If you didn’t have any basis for making incision, you wouldn’t have any

basis to make it.

Why are two things, let’s say the answers to a question, said to be mutually exclusive if there is no way both true at the same time? For instance, a number can only be even or odd, not both at the same time, excluding a third possible answer. “Diptomy” refers to mutually exclusive alternatives, or simply alternatives that are contradictory, opposed or strongly different. Are there examples of mutually exclusive alternatives (the

• dichotomy between reason and passion is
• considered the same).