<P> T. Edward Damer, in his book Attacking Faulty Reasoning, describes what others might call a causal slippery slope but says, </P> <P> "While this image may be insightful for understanding the character of the fallacy, it represents a misunderstanding of the nature of the causal relations between events . Every causal claim requires a separate argument . Hence, any "slipping" to be found is only in the clumsy thinking of the arguer, who has failed to provide sufficient evidence that one causally explained event can serve as an explanation for another event or for a series of events ." </P> <P> Instead Damer prefers to call it the domino fallacy . Howard Kahane suggests that the domino variation of the fallacy has gone out of fashion because it was tied the domino theory for the United States becoming involved in the war in Vietnam and although the U.S. lost that war "it is primarily communist dominoes that have fallen". </P> <P> Frank Saliger notes that "in the German - speaking world the dramatic image of the dam burst seems to predominate, in English speaking circles talk is more of the slippery slope argument" and that "in German writing dam burst and slippery slope arguments are treated as broadly synonymous . In particular the structural analyses of slippery slope arguments derived from English writing are largely transferred directly to the dam burst argument ." In exploring the differences between the two metaphors he comments that in the dam burst the initial action is clearly in the foreground and there is a rapid movement towards the resulting events whereas in the slippery slope metaphor the downward slide has at least equal prominence to the initial action and it "conveys the impression of a slower' step - by - step' process where the decision maker as participant slides inexorably downwards under the weight of its own successive (erroneous) decisions ." Despite these differences Salinger continues to treat the two metaphors as being synonymous . Walton arges that although the two are comparable "the metaphor of the dam bursting carries with it no essential element of a sequence of steps from an initial action through a gray zone with its accompanying loss of control eventuated in the ultimate outcome of the ruinous disaster . For these reasons, it seems best to propose drawing a distinction between dam burst arguments and slippery slope arguments ." </P>

Where did the phrase slippery slope come from