An afterthought

Re: “argued forcefully”: I wonder if argue is about to become the new say. Compare the way speakers and writers use refute in place of rebut.

Garner’s Modern English Usage:

Refute is not synonymous with rebut or deny. That is, it doesn’t mean merely “to counter an argument” but “to disprove beyond doubt; to prove a statement false.”

To rebut is not to refute, and to say is not to argue.

A related post
Misused word of the day: refute