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Be glad. Misuse of the phrase "beg the question" is like salt in my ears. But I mostly keep my mouth shut as it's a battle hopelessly lost at this point.
by technothrasher 5y ago
Be glad. Misuse of the phrase "beg the question" is like salt in my ears. But I mostly keep my mouth shut as it's a battle hopelessly lost at this point.
- dnautics 5y agothe way to fight back is to aggressively use it correctly when it's due. E.G: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29291894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29291894
- criddell 5y agoWhat would you say determines correct usage of a word of phrase?
- dnautics 5y agoMe. What response were you expecting?
- criddell 5y agoI assume you considered a bunch of different perspectives and concluded that one is more correct than the others. I was curious about the reasoning that went into your decision. I went through that process myself a while ago and came to a different conclusion based on the idea that the meaning of a word or phrase in conversation is determined by what it communicates. I qualify with "in conversation" because there are audiences and venues where that's not necessarily true (like in a courtroom).
- dnautics 5y agoIt's completely arbitrary, from case to case. To answer your question about "begging the question" I think the concept of "circular reasoning" is important enough to have a cutesy phrase associated with it.
- criddell 5y agoThat's interesting. I agree that the concept is important and that's why I avoid begs-the-question. Most of the time it doesn't communicate what you hope it does.