Language – Tendentious and Captious

Tendentious

Adj. The Cambridge University Press and Assessment (online) says:

Tendentious refers to something that is expressing or supporting a particular opinion that many other people disagree with. It is marked by a bias in favour of a particular point of view. For example, a tendentious novel would have a definite tendency or purpose.

Captious

Adj. The Cambridge University Press and Assessment (online) says:

Captious describes someone who is often critical or fault-finding, especially about trivial matters. It can also refer to arguments that subtly deceive or entrap through reasoning or trifling points.

In The Queen v Abdirahman-Khalif [2020] HCA 36 (14 October 2020); 94 ALJR 981; 283 A Crim R 272, Bell, Keane, Nettle and Gordon JJ said at [73]:

The complaint about the trial judge’s formulation of whether the attempted trip to Turkey was “completely innocent” or “something more sinister” is captious. Read in the context of the explanation of drawing inferences of intent of which that description formed part, it would surely have been regarded by the jury as nothing more than a quick and not tendentious way of drawing the contrast between the Crown and defence cases. Just as importantly, it was followed immediately by a direction to look at everything that led up to the attempt and everything that went after it, to provide clues as to what was really happening at the time.

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