On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Shawn Burns wrote: > From: Mark A. Mandel [mailto:thnidu at yahoo.com] > > --- Chris Olson - SunPS <Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM> wrote: > > >> Which begs the question: When's the "right time"? > > >RAISES the question. > > > This is an interesting point. I generally uses "begs the question" as > denoting a argument fallacy. But every once in a while I want to use it as > "raises the question", and I think there is at least a popular movement to > change the meaning of the phrase. I don't think I would object to the > meaning being changed, since intuitively I can see "that begs the question" > as meaning "what you have just said is akin to begging me to ask you this > follow-up question". I don't know what the etymology is (perhaps both > meanings were in usage at some point), but I'm inclined to use it both ways, > despite what the OED says. At one point the OED defined a whale as a fish; > meanings change with use. This strikes me as very very evil - there's a phrase that has a unique useful meaning ("making a fallacious argument by assuming the conclusion") not easily expressed otherwise, with a long pedigree >from a phrase ("petitio principii" - "requesting the start" or something) one sees on occasion; and there's a meaning which can be easily expressed idiomatically otherwise ("raises the question", "suggests", "leads to", "brings up", ...) - and people are stomping the former with the latter. At some point we prescriptivists may have to give up on this phrase but it will mean a loss of current expressivity and a loss of comprehensibility of texts.