asr at ufl.edu wrote: >==> On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 13:49:56 -0800 (PST), rone at ennui.org (rone) said: > > > >>Steve Brust writes: >> >> > > > >>>"Bush was elected primarily by the backing of such industries as oil and >>>major finance, which begs the question of who is served by the war in >>>Iraq." >>> >>> > > > > >>You're asking the poor phrase to do too much work. "begs the question" has >>a meaning; let's not overload it. "raises the question" or "leads to the >>question" is correct, [...] >> >> > > >"Demands the question" could work, I might even go so near as "pleads for the >question", to evoke the image the author probably desired, of 'just begging >that any observer ask this obvious question'. > > Perhaps "begs for the question", though I think one reason "begs the question" is misused so often is that neither your alternatives nor the one I've offered seems to roll quite as trippingly off the tongue. OTOH I think "raises the question" is fairly smooth. Granted, all this is IMO, and clearly fairly subjective. Perhaps another reason for the common (prevalent?) misuse of "begs the question" is the it, and other such deterministic phrases are favored by scholars who have for some time been read by those of us who don't really grok (and are oft too lazy to research) the somewhat technical meanings of phrases used in technical writings In any case, I have an AP comp. class taken in high-school to thank for my ability to state, as fact, that using "begs the question" to mean "raises the question" is poor form because that usage sucks.