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He should have said "raises the question". " begs the question".means assuming the conclusion of your argument.
by tocomment 15y ago
He should have said "raises the question". " begs the question".means assuming the conclusion of your argument.
- wahnfrieden 15y agoIrrelevant, pedantic, and prescriptivist.
- SiVal 15y ago...and correct.
- wahnfrieden 15y agoSo what? It's an incorrect reading of the intended meaning.
- SquareWheel 15y agoIt's not pedantic, it totally changes the meaning of the statement.
- vacri 15y agoCommon usage has it the other way around - 'begs the question' does mean 'raises the question', simply because that's how it's used. That philosophical jargon has it differently doesn't change that.
- aMoniker 15y agoAnd by definition of the individual words it can mean 'demands the (following) question'.
- pessimizer 15y agoI'm usually sympathetic to that argument, but the origin of 'begs the question' is philosophical jargon, and the misuse of it perpetually reproduces itself from people hearing it being used properly, not understanding what is being said, and trying to parse the phrase to figure out what it means. Since the phrasing is anachronistic, there's really no chance that they'll come up with 'asks you to accept as true' for 'begs,' and 'the conclusion' for 'the question.' But honestly, if you mean to say 'brings up the question' you should just say it, instead of reaching for an anachronistic pithy phrase or buzzword.
- bane 15y agoNobody uses it with that meaning anymore, the phrase has taken on a different meaning. This happens with language, definitions shift, nuance is added, old meanings fall away. If you use the phrase with the original Latin meaning, you'd likely just confuse your listener. It hasn't had that definition in the common parlance for probably the last couple of centuries -- or at least since Latin stopped being necessary for a proper education. Time to update your dictionary!
- wyclif 15y agoGet it right. http://begthequestion.info/ http://begthequestion.info/ Shouldn't we accept that words change in meaning over time? True, words like "cool" and "gay" gained new meaning via a process of modern association with their understood meanings, but BTQ abuse rises from a misunderstanding of its original use. It would be as though people started using "the die is cast" to mean dying, simply because the word "die" is in there, without any knowledge of Caesar. Is there any idiom -- not a single word, but a full phrase -- whose meaning has changed over the years, simply by virtue of its being misunderstood by the linguistically inept or the historically ignorant? But language is constantly evolving. That's great to know! Descriptivist linguists, whom we do not fault for their stand, are quite free to watch as we bring about an evolution in the vernacular understanding of "begging the question."
- bane 15y agoI am right. There's no reason why specific disciplines can't have their own meaning to words and phrases. Vector, moment, impulse, circuit, computer, etc. all have historic uses that are largely forgotten today or have different meanings in different contexts. Just because a usage is old, or specific to a certain context doesn't mean that usage should be universal or part of the common tongue. Arguing that language is fixed, and should never change is arguing from a special kind of gross ignorance -- the kind where a person has learned enough to think they know it all, but don't actually know anything in particular. I think the phrase "know enough to be dangerous" comes to mind with most proscriptivists. If you think I'm wrong, don't ever use vector again unless it's the one I personally think it the correct singular usage, and don't ever use computer unless you are talking about a person who performs calculations.