Until I began reading the SDMB, I thought that the phrase “begs the question” meant “invites the question”. I’m still not exactly sure of the correct use of the phrase but I now know that my previous understanding was incorrect.
In the most recent issue of Discover magazine (October 2004) there is an article on “The Myth of Mind Control”. The first few paragraphs talk about a few actual experiments and some hypothetical scenarios, then this:
Is this a correct usage of the phrase? I tried replacing the sentence with “invites the question” and it seemed to make sense. Therefore I concluded that the usage was wrong. Yet, due to my own confusion about the correct usage I decided to ask the language mavens here.
This whole discussion of course begs the question of whether or not the use of the phrase is changing to a whole new meaning.
Generally, it’s the opposite:
“Begs the question” means “avoids the question”.
So, in the example, the writer is saying “Well, all these futuristic scenarios are neat and all, but nobody has said whether these are realistically possible.”
‘Begging the question’ is defined as a specific type of logical fallacy, that is an inherently flawed mode of debate. Specifics may be found here
However, there are two fairly reasonable arguments against this being the sole definition of the term:
-In modern English, it doesn’t exactly mean what it says; ‘begging the question’ cannot be intuitively understood to actually mean ‘assuming the conclusion’
-Usage: if lots of people understand a phrase to mean something, that’s what it means.
It seems to me that there is only a subtle difference between “inviting the question” and “avoiding the question”. In both cases, there is an unspoken question that isn’t being addressed.
I agree completely. I’m glad you said it though – a well respected Doper like you will get a lot less grief than if I had said it.
Hence, my continued confusion about proper use. The logical fallacy meaning doesn’t seem to translate well into common language usage.
And my question is still left hanging: did the Discover writer use this phrase properly, or did the writer use the phrase improperly (but conforming to popular usage)?
One of the fascinations of SDMB is the kinds of questions that show up. I could live without the “help me with my homework” kind, but the college students/new grads who “I’ve taken one (or two) courses in X, therefore I know more than you” are the ones that drive me buggy.
OTOH, then we get questions like this one.
My first reaction was agreement with Quercus. However, I concede that I must take a backup position with Mangetout’s logical fallacy definition.
In conclusion, I think that the “avoids the question” definition has probably been used more than the “logical fallacy” one. Of course, I’m not going to spend the next ten years of my life compiling and tabulating the statistical universe.
One of the fascinations of SDMB is the kinds of questions that show up. I could live without the “help me with my homework” kind, but the college students/new grads who “I’ve taken one (or two) courses in X, therefore I know more than you” are the ones that drive me buggy.
OTOH, then we get questions like this one.
My first reaction was agreement with Quercus. However, I concede that I must take a backup position with Mangetout’s logical fallacy definition.
In conclusion, I think that the “avoids the question” definition has probably been used more than the “logical fallacy” one. Of course, I’m not going to spend the next ten years of my life compiling and tabulating the statistical universe.
To answer your question, that quote from Discover magazine uses the phrase as it’s popularly used nowadays, not in the way it traditionally meant. If you’re a pedant, you might say that they used it incorrectly. Most linguists would point out that language evolves over time, and since the phrase means “invites the question” the vast majority of times it’s used, then that’s what it means.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t use it like this myself. There are always a number of people in your audience who will roll their eyes and focus on your “mistake.”
Improperly, but conforming to popular usage (the same kind of popular usage that makes chemists grind their teeth when ‘organic’ is used as a term meaning anything other than ‘pertaining to carbon compounds’)
:eek: :o
Aargh! Sorry, folks. The stupid thing, when it stopped processing on submit #1, was back where it started. So I made the mistake of clicking reply again.
I’ve noticed some double-posting by others recently, ones who don’t normally make goofs of this kind. And I do recall a case a few days ago when I pulled up a second instance of the thread I was resping to, and it showed the reply posted, even though it didn’t show up in window #1. I guess maybe this is one of the bugs that have to be worked out with the new host??
Bingo. When someone says something “begs the question” in a debate, it’s not a valid argument against one’s opponent and his statements. However, the question that is being “begged” in that particular debate might still be valid, and in the sense that the phrase is just a lead-in, then there’s nothing wrong with it.
When Uncle Jessie and Boss Hogg were locked in the vault and only Boss Hogg knew the combination, it is Luke who came to the rescue to let them out. Which begs the question: How did Luke know the combination?
It is a shame that this uniquely useful phrase has all but lost its original meaning. But Mangetout is correct - time marches on and the language evolves. I suppose the best we can do is try to save the ones we can. I still say “decimate” can be pulled from the ashes - despite the popular media’s attempts to destroy it.
And many of these pendants reside here on the SDMB.
I have concluded that there is enough tacit approval here in this thread to risk the eye-rolling of the SDMB grammar nazis if I use the phrase to mean “invite the question”. I’ll simply respond that “the language is changing – deal with it.”
Thanks to all of the respondents for your thoughts. I appreciate it.
Sort of. I assume you’re invoking the principle of common usage, but it doesn’t quite work that way. The principle doesn’t apply to general use. Until academics, scholars, intellectuals, and teachers - the folks who write textbooks and style guides - begin using a phrase in a particular way, it isn’t considered “common usage”.
(Who defines common usage? Why, academics, scholars, intellectuals, and teachers, of course!)
The acid test: if you can use the phrase at a university faculty cocktail party and nobody under the age of fifty rolls their eyes, you’re good.
Currently, I would avoid the use of the phrase in any context except formal logic. If you’re trying to make a point, it’ll be lost in the sneers of the very audience you probably want to reach most. You’ll immediately be dismissed as some hick babbling in his native accent.
I suspect, however, that within another generation the phrase’ll finally fall into common usage and you can bray it to your heart’s content without sounding silly.
Lexographers are more open-minded when it comes to change, and often consider themselves documentors of the language as it evolves. However, they generally define words as slang until those words fall into the common usage among the intelligencia. Similarly, I would describe the usage in the OP as a slang use of the phrase, perhaps appropriate for sounding important when arguing with your buddies at the bar, but inappropriate for formal discourse.
Simple solution here – transport any journalist who misuses “decimate” to an absolute monarchy where the ruler shares your taste for precise English usage. Then have him announce that in the morning, their ranks will be decimated by random executions – under either the erroneous or the accurate usage, just as they choose. Watch them jump to adopt the precise usage!
I think any pendant who criticizes your language use should be hung, preferably from a necklace. However, I would not assign the death penalty to pedants who are fond of maintaining clarity of word meanings.
Don’t tell me; the people who insist this is the acid test are… academics, scholars, intellectuals, and teachers?
Language changes regardless of (and sometimes contrary to) the approval of academics; take for example, the now-accepted usage of words like ‘wicked’, ‘awesome’ and even ‘cool’ can’t possibly have been rubber-stamped by a bunch of crusty guys in mortar-boards. Dictionaries, text books and to a certain extent style guides describe language that has already come about.
(‘Begging the question’, however, Might be considered something of an exception because it just happens to relate to debate - a subject which academics, scholars, intellectuals, and teachers consider (perhaps rightly) their domain.)
But in everyday usage, if everyone (except perhaps a small minority of eye-rolling diehard brainboxes) understands a phrase to mean something, that’s what it means. That’s how language works.
I’ll cheer for “decimate” (although you may have to draft news media into a remedial arithmetic class), if you’ll help fight the near-annihilation of “unique”.
Yup, that’s what it is. I think they’re the most beautiful critters on the planet, and Blake said it so nicely.
In the world -I- live in, those who describe and teach the language exert a great deal of control over the formal use of that language. They set the standards to which many decision-makers adhere, and the rest of us follow those standards if we wish to address that audience.
Academic standards of language -do- change (As I noted in the last paragraph of my first post), but on a slower scale than those of the common folk. If the populace is able to exert total control over the language, history shows that it can quickly break down into a mess of dialects; maintaining a standard baseline for language was the great linguistic achievement of the Enlightenment.
In our society, mass-media tends to spread and homogenize certain aspects of language, but cannot serve as a proper baseline. Although many in our society do glean their language skills from the media, there’s too much nonconformity of usage, and it changes nearly as quickly as the slang of the teeming millions.
Strictly in my opinion, this is the cause of the increasingly stark “generational dialects” we’ve seen over the last century or so. Also in my opinion, this is Not A Good Thing.
quothz: ‘However, they generally define words as slang until those words fall into the common usage among the intelligencia.’
commasense: ‘I think you meant to say intelligentsia.’
I wouldn’t bet on it. Those of us in the know will understand immediately that **quothz ** is using that form as a kind of social semiotic to indicate allegiance.
