If beggars could question
How frequently do you (as a copy editor or otherwise) come across the phrase "begs the question" as a synonym for "raises the question?" How close are we to altering the original definition?
Few things make me this angry.
So wrote an irate Jason Jones. Let's look at what has exercised him.
"To beg the question" does not mean to raise or pose or provoke a question. It is a technical term in logic for a circular argument.
Edward P.J. Corbett's Classic Rhetoric for the Modern Student (as useful for his list and descriptions of tropes as for his list and descriptions of fallacies) gives two examples. The lawyer who says, "My client would not steal because he is an honest man," is begging the question. A longer version: "'God exists.' 'How do you know that God exists?' 'The Bible says so.' 'Why should I put my credence in what the Bible says?' 'Because it's the inspired word of God.' God is worthy of a more cogent
argument than this."
Writers who were not taught logic in school -- evidently a great many -- will think that to beg a question means to give rise to a question.
In that they are like the multitude of writers who have appropriated technical but dimly understood language. A parameter, for example, is "a constant, with variable values, used as a referent for
determining other variables." If you are a mathematician, that definition from Webster's New World College Dictionary probably means something to you. If you are not a mathematician, you are probably using parameter to mean a boundary or limit or guideline, or perhaps nothing in
particular.
People do write this way. Some even talk this way. Eventually, loose applications of technical terms to different contexts find their way into the dictionary, some embedding themselves in the language. That is fine. But in the interval, anyone who wishes to write precisely will be cautious.
Comments
The misuse of this phrase seems to be ubiquitous at law schools. The professors really ought to know better.
Posted by: Frolic | March 5, 2007 10:29 PM
In like manner (or manor, if I'm feeling hifalutin), I wage a futile battle against "impact' as a verb. I feel it is best reserved for its narrow meaning (to collide with), rather than as an all-purpose substitute for "affect" or "influence." I have blogged on this myself; I suspect you have too.
Posted by: Pawlie Kokonuts | March 6, 2007 9:28 PM
"Begs the question" is misused mostly, I suspect, because the construction, uh, begs to be misused.
When you hear the phrase you intuitively think "begs" means "requests" and from there it's a short step to "raises."
People *should* be more precise because "raises" is more precise than "begs" in this context, but sometimes from a language standpoint it just feels easier to go with the familiar phrase as commonly understood, or misunderstood in this case.
Posted by: tom | March 7, 2007 3:18 PM
A, um, favorite dis-favorite of many people is "paradigm," which of course has technical meaning(s). ("I opine, you opine, he/she/it opines.") I believe (can't find cite) that Thomas Kuhn at one point expressed some regret that he'd coined the term "paradigmn shift," given its mutation upon release into the wild.
The problem with "beg the question" is that it sure _sounds_ like it's raising a question, with the added connotation that the question is really begging to be raised, as it were. It is perhaps an unfortunate coinage for its technically correct meaning. In fact, why the term "beg the question" is used to mean "circular argument" isn't at all clear, at least not to me. As an aside, it would be interesting to survey people and ask whether there is anything wrong with the examples you provide of circular reasoning. The results would probably be ... dismaying.
As another (and last) aside, it's interesting to note that "to impact" in its sense of "collide with" is intransitive -- you can't say "The ball impacted the bat." But in its figurative sense, it can be transitive: "The sales figures impacted the entire company." (I think.)
Posted by: mike | March 7, 2007 4:11 PM
I prefer the more general definition: an argument begs the question when the denial of the premises is more plausible than the conclusion.
Posted by: Samuel Quill | March 7, 2007 11:00 PM
Here's a comic strip directly related to this very, um, question: I like to print it out and stick it all over copy desk bulletin boards. :-)
http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=693
(Mouse over the comic after reading for bonus line.)
Posted by: Denise Covert | March 12, 2007 11:21 AM
I think we should just start saying "petitio principi" instead of "begging the question". It's a crappy translation, no one who's never studied logic can guess what it means - due to the huge number of English phrases with "beg" in them that do mean what people think they mean - and we seem happy to use argumentum ad hominem, tu quoque, non sequitur, argumentum ad misericordiam, and post hoc, ergo propter hoc, among many others. So it's not the Latin scaring us off!
Posted by: Karen | March 14, 2007 3:08 PM
Impact is not a verb. The verb is 'impinge': Something which impinges upon something else has had an impact. Unlike a comment on a lapsed thread.
Posted by: moved to comment | July 28, 2008 10:21 AM
this article, while very true, is quite pretentious. particularly obvious is overblown and arrogant statements like this one:
"Writers who were not taught logic in school -- evidently a great many -- will think that to beg a question means to give rise to a question."
come on big fella
Posted by: Oliver | August 14, 2008 11:39 PM