It’s just a phrase whose component words don’t actually suggest the meaning. Like “make the bed” or “go to sleep.” I think it’s constructions like this that give English its quirky charm.
This causes me to ask*
CAN I HIT Svt4Him? HUH? CAN I? PLEEEEEEEEEESE? 
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- Isn’t that a clearer way to say it than either begs or raises the question? And isn’t it sad when I end up showing you people the CLEAR way of saying something? :rolleyes:
Hey, I didn’t say I liked it, just said that’s how it will be going. Well, at least on the net.
The problem with this argument is that “these words” DO NOT “also happen to be the term for a certain logical fallacy,” they only “happen to be the term for a certain logical fallacy.” Technically, that is.
From Paul Brians “Common Errors in English”
But hey, even Cecil needs an outlet for his hostility…
(all bolding mine)
Okay, everybody back away from the computer.
As long as we’re at it, per se is Latin for “in or by itself.” it is used to isolate a specific subject or thought from a broader whole (e.g. “I don’t hate Christmas per se I just hate all the commercialism.”) Some people seem to use per se as a sort of all purpose intensifyer or they think that it means something like “precisely” or “Definitively” (“It’s not a biography per se. it’s more like a novel.”)
If you want to use per se in a semtence, first substitute the words “by itself” in your mind. If “by (or in) itself” would not work then you are using per se incorrectly.
"‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more or less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’"
— Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
It being used incorrectly isn’t why I hate it, I hate the phrase “it begs the question” merely because it just SOUNDS so stuffed shirt and meant to impress.
Like something one of “those” people in a class or meeting would say (you know the ones, everyone else is hoping to get out of there and go to lunch, and they’re trying to sound OH so intelligent by “pretending” to ask “smart questions”? And they do so for an ETERNITY???).
Take the stick out of your butt and settle down. What’s confusing you are two similar yet different phrases. “Begging the question” is a logical fallacy in which the the premises are at least as questionable as the conclusion reached. “Begs the question” is a different phrase that means to suggest another question. The two are similar, but they have different meanings, and are each correct in their own appropriate context. This may be a recent development, but common usage has established “begs the question” as a useful phrase, so you might as well used to it.
Seeing such outright filth on the SDMB begs a question I’d rather not answer, that you very much.
Although if Fear Itself wants to liquid my skybox, I’m ready, willing, and able!
Garner’s Dictionary of Modern American Usage, which is probably the best balance between descriptivism and prescriptivism on the market, makes no such distinction. For the phrase beg the question he simply says “see begging the question.”
He states that
In his entry he gives an example of a statement in which the writer uses “begs” to suggest that there is another question that needs answering. Garner contends that this can be corrected simply by replacing “begs” with “ignores.”
Works for me.
For the record, the statement “two parallel lines have no point of intersection” is not a tautology. In fact, it is a false statement.
A true statement is “two non-colinear parallel lines have no point of intersection”. This statement is not a tautology, however. Rather, it is, to the best of my knowledge, true by definition.
That’s what comes of trying to give an example (I used up my creativity bringing in oxymoron).
Go on, then, give an example of a ‘necessarily true’ statement (which isn’t a definition).
Glee
“Either your name is Tom or else it isn’t.”
However, “or else” in this context is a pleonasm, since “or” would do perfectly well.
And I take it no one here would ever use the term “spam” in any of its variously capitalized forms to refer to anything but the spiced meat product?
Libertarian,
you quote 3 universities over ‘tautology’:
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If the statement includes ‘A and not A’, then it is necessarily true, which is what I said (using the Oxford Dictionary definition).
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one of the universities claims ‘A tautology is logically implied by any statement whatsoever’.
So presumably these are all tautologies:
‘A tautology is logically implied by any statement.’
‘The cat sat on the mat.’ (whether the cat is on the mat or not)
‘A tautology is not logically implied by any statement.’
I don’t see what their definition is.
That only begs the question of how to start a sentence with “spam” as the first word.
Since, of course, we capitalize the first word of a sentence because that’s how it’s done.
[sub]Oh, look! A zebra crossing![/sub]