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Thursday, June 30, 2005

Pedant's corner

Begging the question does not mean inviting the question. It means the logical fallacy of assuming as true the very proposition you have set out to prove. So it is wrong to say "This begs the question: why are you such a pedant?" Unfortunately, the entire English-speaking world—minus a few people who, hypothetically, might have once collected usage books—is unaware of this fact.

Hardly a day goes by that I don't encounter the phrase misused in print or speech, and I see it used correctly maybe a few times a year. Since we speak English and not French, at least one reputable dictionary now declares the wrong usage as "widely accepted in modern standard English." Anyway, there's no fighting it, other than to always use "invites the question" in every instance when the rest of the English-speaking world says "begs the question." I highly recommend doing that. It will simply delight that small group of people out there who, hypothetically, might have once collected usage books. (Incidentally, the Latin term for the logical fallacy of begging the question is petitio principii. Don't ask how I know this—I . . . just . . . do.)


posted at 6:39 PM

1 Comments:

Blogger syp said...

O.k., I won't be asking then.

July 06, 2005 4:46 PM  

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