Category mistake

Okay kiddo, have you ever played a game of "who's taller" with your friends? You all line up and compare heights to see who is the tallest and who is the shortest, right? Now, imagine if instead of comparing heights, you started comparing colors. Like, who is bluer or redder than the other. That wouldn't make sense, would it? That's because you are making a category mistake.

A category mistake is when you try to compare or group things that belong in different categories and have no common properties that can be compared. For example, you can't compare the weight of an apple and the speed of a plane because they are two different things that have nothing in common.

Another example is when people say things like "where does the smell of the rainbow come from?" That doesn't make sense because a rainbow doesn't have a smell. It's a visual phenomenon, not something you can smell.

So, a category mistake is when you try to put things into the wrong category and compare them with things that they are not comparable to. It's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, they just don't match!