Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

A sighting of "tortuous logic" from 1863:

"...It is in an awakened moral perception that it intuitively
recognizes its deadliest foe; and it is for this cause that it tries to
wrest this weapon to its own use, and, by the most tortuous logic, the
most ingenious pleading, and an affectation of the most expansive
benevolence, seeks to pervert the gospel itself to a defence of its
atrocities, and to hold up slavery as the great Missionary institution
of the age...."

http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moa&cc=moa&xc=1&idno=abz396
1.0001.001&g=moagrp&q1=tortuous+logic&frm=frameset&view=image&seq=31

A sighting of "untortured logic" from 1871:

"...it follows, by plain and un-
tortured logic, that wherever we know
that a portion of a country would sepa-
rate if it were allowed to go, we must
let it go...."

http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&cite=http%3A%2F%2
Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABR0102-0108-9&co
ll=moa&root=%2Fmoa%2Flivn%2Flivn0108%2F&tif=00453.TIF&view=50

Neither "torturous logic" nor "tortured logic" was found by
either the MOA-Cornell or the MOA-Mich search engine.  This posting,
thus, is "FWIW."

Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~~ San Diego

Nothing.  However, my theory is that though "tortuous logic" may have
been in at the birth, "tortured logic" could easily be a hyperbolic way
of saying that the logic is distorted (that root again) in a way that
would cause it pain if it were a limb and causes the onlooker pain.

You might compare "tortured syntax" (11,300 Google hits).  I notice, by
the way, that the first page of Ghits (67,000) for "tortured logic" are
all opinion pieces about U.S. policies in regard to torture.  No wonder
the phrase is "now very common".