<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by slummingreporter: I am curious, now. What would be a proper use then of "begs the question." Not being snarky, here, just curious.<hr></blockquote>See the above definition, with examples. "Begging the question" is not a synonym for "raising the question"; it refers to a circular form of argument that takes a proposition and structures the argument so that the proposition is assumed to be true, then used to "prove" that the conclusion [a reiteration of the proposition] is true. It's similar to a tautology.<p>Classic example:<p>According to the Bible, God exists. As the Bible is God's word and God doesn't lie, God must therefore exist.<p>Or: slumming reporter is a writer. All writers are drunkards, therefore slumming reporter is a drunkard.<p>[Whilst many a writer I have known drinks to still the voices in his head*, I would not accept that as a tenable argument for determining anyone's degree of alcohol consumption.]<p>OTOH, you may accept the validity of the following, which neither begs a question nor argues a proposition:<p>The DominEditrix is an old curmudgeoness who believes that the English language should be vital and evolving, but has observed that, of late, it appears to be devolving into lowest-common-denominator babble. She spent too many decades tweaking a comma here, a clause there, striking out factual errors and distilling the gist of a piece into a few pithy words not to have noticed the linguisitic decline of what passed across her desk. [If you think publishing is bad, try law.] Now that she is in testy semi-retirement, she has decided to remain as cantankerous as ever she was back in the Age of Aquarius. She still refuses to grok anything, continues to believe in the who/whom distinction, and would cheerfully light matches under the fingernails of those who say "between you and I".<p>D.<p>* Not sexist of me; I just don't know any female writers who drink to excess.
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