Re: "beg the question"

["Todd A. Pafford" <outergalen@toadmail.com>]

Gary Lehmann wrote:
> Begging the Question. 
> It doesn't mean what you think...

Thanks for that bit of research.  This is one of those things that
drives people nuts when misused.  However, I sometimes feel that
language is not unlike a slowly evolving loop.  Motifs and phrases get
repeated over and over, slowly changing their relationships to one
another, evolving into something that while bearing similarity to the
original is substantially different.

In cases like "beg the question" where the literal meaning of the words
strung together as they are implies "raise the question", I like to
think I'm forward thinking about the evolution of language.  However, I
can't help but shudder when I see people who still can't keep "there",
"their", and "they're" straight.