: I have also been trying to offer up Merry as co-witness, both at the occasion at which Treebeard 'gave us a queer look' (Pippin's words) and at the time when he recounts these things to Aragorn and company. But you seem to want to focus on Pippin as an unreliable witness, for reasons I cannot fathom.

It's called "witness credibility" and it's used to discount part of your argument. In arguementation, you attack every avenue to discount in whole or in part, the opposing view point. That shoudl be clear enough. But since the rest of yur argument concerning Ttreebeard and Gandalf is disprovable, then we can drop the whole matter concerning Pippin.

-RR