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Friday, April 18, 2003
I'M BEGGING YOU.
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I have been noticing more and more, the misuse of the phrase "begging the question" or "that begs the question" to mean "that raises the question," as in, "I understand that you were on an airplane recently. That begs the question: how was your trip?" This is an incorrect usage of the phrase.
"Begging the question" means proving something that is already assumed by your premises, and thereby arguing in a circle. It is a logical fallacy. An example is to say "Going to a university will make you distinguished, because universities have distinguished professors who teach there. The professors are distinguished because they went to universities." In other words, that proves that going to a university will make someone distinguished, only if it's true that going to a university makes someone distinguished. This circular reasoning is what it means to beg a question-- We're begging the question of whether going to a university make people distinguished.
So where did the misuse come from? I contend that there is a single human being responsible for this, and it is Late Night talk show host Conan O'Brien. When his show first came out, he misused the phrase, "that begs the question" almost every night for a month. I had never heard it misused before, ever, and even afterwards I didn't hear it misused for a year or so. But then, I started hearing this misuse more and more, over and over, until, today, the misuse of the phrase seems more common than the proper use.
In America, we don't have a queen or king to give us "the Queen's English" or "the King's English". We rely on newscasters and talk show hosts like Conan O'Brien to be the guardians of the language. Many of these people take this part of their job very seriously. I know that Tom Brokaw and British-born Ted Koppel famously regard this as a major part of their jobs. Conan O'Brien should take this responsibility no less seriously, even if he is a comedian.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/04/im-begging-you.html
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