A dilemma is a difficult choice between two alternatives. I recently learned that there is a word for a choice between three alternatives: trilemma. But what if I have a hard choice between four options?
I was curious, so I did some googling. It turns out that there's some disagreement as to what a choice between four options should be called -- is it a quadrilemma or a tetralemma? (The Greek and Latin prefixes for "three" are both "tri-," so there's no conflict in that case.) I'd argue for the Greek tetralemma, as the suffix -lemma comes from the Greek word for premise, and Google seems to agree: there are 25,100 hits for tetralemma and only 6,940 for quadrilemma.
I was curious as to how this played out for more -lemmas; the Greek "tetralemma" and "pentalemma" dominate the Latin "quadrilemma" and "quintilemma," respectively. However, the internet seems to have found the Latin-Greek mix "sexalemma" irresistible, for obvious reasons, and the Latin "septalemma" easily won out over the Greek "heptalemma." There are a huge number of "nonalemmas," apparently, and almost no "ennealemmas." And apparently people with 100 choices prefer the Latin-Greek creole "centilemma" to the pure Greek "hectalemma." I was unable to find either the Latin or the Greek prefix for 99, but I'm sure that for those linguists with 99 problems, this ain't one.
Some interesting multilemmas:
- The Lewis Trilemma: the argument that Jesus was either "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord." The eponymous Lewis is C.S. Lewis of Narnia fame, who was also a famous Christian apologist.
The Charleston Mercury argued, reported the New York Times in 1861, that the Confederate States were caught on the horns of a quadrilemma: their options were to negotiate, engage in privateering, fight on the sea, or use the economic power provided by the cotton trade to forward their interests.
On the other hand, the "non-classical logic of India" preferred the tetralemma, or catuskoti, which was the claim that a statement could be either true, false, neither, or both(!). This seems to be an originally Buddhist idea which has made its way into other parts of Indian philosophy.
Perhaps following Lewis, contemporary Christian apologists have come up with quintilemmas and other myrialemmas. The pentalemma seems to be largely of interest to online dictionaries.
Please don't google "sexalemma." On the other hand, there are several interesting hexalemmas -- for example, this paper by Campbell Brown argues that it is better to exist than not, rebutting previous depressing work of Benatar (David, unfortunately, not Pat). Brown postulates the existence of a person, named Jemima, who exists in many worlds, and compares those worlds to one in which she does not exists. He extracts six alternatives from this comparison -- if you are interested despite my description, feel free to read more.
The Buddhist tetralemma above has been extended to a septalemma by the Jains. Other literature refers to it as a heptalemma.
Apparently the problem of time in quantum gravity leads to an octalemma.
And most of the hits for "decalemma" are the result of Google generously interpreting my search as an interest in "decal Emma."