[Ads-l] _beg_ "bring to mind"

[Laurence Horn]

> On Feb 21, 2016, at 12:29 AM, Christopher Philippo <toff at MAC.COM> wrote:
> 
> On Feb 21, 2016, at 12:18 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>> In a comment to nytimes.com:
>> 
>> "It _begs_ the famous statement by Franklin about surrendering essential
>> liberties for a little security.”
> 
> Many people use the phrase begs the question when they mean raises the question, or brings to mind the question, so perhaps the above arose out of that misuse?

horse; barn door.  At this point, only in part since it's been in circulation for a century or so, I'm afraid we have to concede that's a *use* of the phrase, and it is what those speakers mean when they use it.

AHD5 has two senses/uses for "beg the question"

beg the question
1. To assume to be true what one is purporting to prove in an argument.
2. To call to mind a question in a discussion; invite or provoke a question.

and the latter is not annotated with a pejorative value judgment.  There is also a useful usage note on the (d)evolution, which I reproduce here in a slightly less readable version (see https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=beg for the original) because of the romanizing of the italics:

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Usage Note: 
Historically, logicians and philosophers have used the phrase beg the question to mean "to put forward an argument whose conclusion is already assumed as a premise." Usually, when people beg the question in this sense, the conclusion and the assumed premise are put in slightly different words, which tends to obscure the fact that such an argument is logically meaningless. For instance, to argue that caviar tastes better than peanut butter because caviar has a superior flavor is to beg the question—the premise that is taken as given (that caviar's flavor is superior) is essentially identical to the point it is intended to prove (that caviar tastes better).·But since at least the early 1900s, laypeople have been using beg the question in slightly different senses, to mean "raise a relevant question" or "leave a relevant question unanswered." When used in these senses, beg the question is usually followed by a clause explaining what the question in question is, as in That article begs the question of whether we should build a new school or renovate the old one or The real estate listing claims that the kitchen is spacious, which begs the question of what "spacious" means. These senses of beg the question are so well established that they have nearly displaced the original sense in everyday usage, but they are still often frowned on by traditionalists, especially those with training in philosophy; in our 2013 survey, the sentences above were judged acceptable only by slim majorities of the Usage Panel—55 and 58 percent, respectively. By contrast, a sentence using the phrase in its original sense (When I asked him why we must protect every endangered species regardless of the cost, he said it was because every species is priceless, but that just begs the question) was considered acceptable by 79 percent of the Panel. The newer senses of beg the question will probably continue to flourish because "begging a question" suggests "begging for," or "raising" a question. However, this broader usage will also probably continue to draw the ire of philosophers and others who use the "circular reasoning" sense of the term, for which there is no good substitute, and do not want to see its technical meaning lost.
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(I forget which way I voted on this; it probably depended on what sort of day I was having when I filled out the questionnaire.)
The OED entry (s.v. "beg", 6) still only has the "petitio principii" fallacy definition, but then the entry hasn't been fully updated since 1877

LH

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