It begs the question: is it just me?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Nothing.  But you can't fight regress.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: It begs the question: is it just me?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What was wrong with, "That raises the question"?

-Wilson

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 12:17 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: It begs the question: is it just me?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 11:31 AM -0400 5/30/08, David Donnell wrote:
>>Whenever I hear someone use the phrase "begs the question" followed
>>by a question, I instantly assume the speaker never took a class in
>>logic...
>>
>>Someone tell me I'm wrong.
>>
>>Not being clever--don't mean to proscribe such usage--just curious if
>>anyone (or how many) who studied logical fallacies ever uses the
>>phrase in the 'non-logic' sense.
>>
> They probably do, but just feel guilty about it.
>
> LH
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org