From: Dan Hartung
Date: Jan 9, 2005 12:15am
Subject:

I've spent time on both the prescriptivist and descriptivist
sides of language, but now lean strongly toward the latter.
I think prescriptivism has a place, but only as a functional
ruleset for communication, not as being correct for its own
sake.

That said, I have long felt that concern about
begs-the-question "misuse" is misplaced. I believe that when
a person casually invokes "that begs the question", even if
they /really mean/ "raises the concern", they actually are
putting forth an assumption -- begging the question.

"Congressman Smith voted no on the Social Security package.
Which begs the question, does he have parents he cares
about?"
"Mark claims to be an auto mechanic but doesn't know metric
from his ass. Which begs the question, do you want him
working on your Fiat?"

In these formulations, the ending is really a kind of uptalk
variant. Uptalk is understood to be a socialized gloss over
possibly controversial opinions ("So he was like you're not
worth my time, OK?") and I believe that the modern use of
"begs the question" functions similarly. The speakers above
*really do mean*
"Congressman Smith does not care about his parents ... or
yours."
"Mark should not be working on cars, certainly not foreign
cars."

Thus, they are positing an assumption of argument. The
fallacy is there, too, in that there is usually only a
passing and unproven logical connection between the
statements.

Now, I can see how this will be dismissed as a convoluted
rationalization. But when I myself realized that the way
people did use it still involved argument and (often)
fallacy, just *turned around*, it completely changed my
understanding of the usage and the claims of misuse.