Yeah, I suffer from grammar rage. There are certain abuses of the English language that get under my skin. I'm not sure why. I'm sure that there are ways that I abuse the language and don't know it. And they probably annoy other people. But they don't annoy me. Since I don't know about them. This blogpost is about one such abuse. Begging a question.
I often hear people talk about something begging a question.
"Well, that just begs the question: How did he get all that money?"
"That certainly begs the question: Where does all that garbage go?"
The problem is that they are using the phrase to mean "raises the question." It kind of sounds right, the way they say it, since one can easily see the phrase as a shortened version of "begs for the question to be asked." But it's wrong.
To "beg a question" is to answer a question by restating the premise without actually giving any additional information.
Sometimes one of my kids asks me why I don't find a particular joke funny. If I answer by saying "I just don't see the humor in it," then I'm begging the question.
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