From "Zoe Sandell" <yiddishtangofever@shaw.ca>
How about..?
Beg the question
Meaning
This is one of those rare phrases in which the meaning is more debated than
the origin.
The usage which has become common in recent years has a meaning something
along the lines of 'prompt/raise the question', that is, 'beg that the
question be asked'. This is usually seen in circumstances where something is
described and then an explanation is sought. For example, this piece from a
2003 edition of the Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner:
What we are saying here is that every 2 days a juvenile is arrested and it
begs the question, "What is really happening to our parents?"
This usage is understandable and has presumably come about by interpreting
the 'beg' of 'beg the question' as 'request' or 'humbly submit'. This is the
meaning of the word in the similar phrase 'beg to differ'.
The original meaning was quite different though. To 'beg the question' was
coined as a rather over-literal translation of the Latin phrase 'petitio
principii'. The Latin version was itself a translation of Greek text 'en
archei aiteisthai' taken from Aristotle's Prior Analytics. The phrase was
known in English by at least 1581, at which date it was recorded by William
Clarke:
"Ffiij, I say this is still to begge the question."
The logical constructs that Aristotle was describing were statements which
assume the truth that one is attempting to prove. Those might be questions
which have an assertion smuggled into them, like 'Why has England fewer
trees per acre than any other country in Europe?'. Or, more commonly, the
fallacious reasoning that we now usually call a 'circular argument'. For
example, 'He must be speaking the truth because he never lies'. The 'truth'
being assumed in advance isn't always so blatant. Ren? Descartes' famous 'I
think, therefore I am' can be said to be begging the question as he must
exist before he can think - it is hardly a proof of anything to state 'I
exist, therefore I am'.
If things weren't obscure enough with this phrase there was a version of the
meaning that emerged between the two given above. That was its use to mean
'avoid the question'. This presumably also came from a misreading of 'beg'
to follow the meaning of 'beggar description' or 'beggar belief'. That
meaning of beggar, which seems to have been coined by Shakespeare in Anthony
and Cleopatra, 1606, is 'exceed the resources of; go beyond':
"For her owne person It beggerd all discription."
Most authorities now view the current 'raise the question' meaning as
acceptable, even if that is a somewhat grudging recognition that the weight
of numbers of those who use it that way is overwhelming. It is also
suggested by some that the minority who know and understand the original
version should avoid using it, unless they are amongst consenting adults, as
they aren't likely to be understood. That would be an unfortunate route to
take. Whatever we might prefer, it is very likely that the percentage of the
population that knows, or cares, that they are using the phrase incorrectly
will continue to decline.
Gary Martin...
Gary Martinis the author of the Meanings
<http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/index.html> and Origins section of the
Phrasefinder site and of the Phrase A Week
<http://www.phrases.org.uk/a-phrase-a-week/index.html> posts. The site,
which he founded in 1997, grew out of an interest in language that was
developed during his post-graduate research in 1985 and later while working
in a research project in computational linguistics at Sheffield Hallam
University.
_____
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Al Guecia/AlliedPianoCraft
Sent: January 5, 2010 6:21 AM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Glues and clamping but going O-T!
Very true John. Useful information, but not 100% reliable. Anyone can make
entries.
Al
From: John Formsma <mailto:formsma@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 9:47 PM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Glues and clamping but going O-T!
Just FYI ... Wikipedia is not necessarily reliable. I've gotten to the point
that I no longer use it unless first consulting other sources.
--
JF
On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 5:03 PM, John Delacour <JD@pianomaker.co.uk> wrote:
That is also quite wrong, David. The proper meaning of the expression "to
beg the question" is explained at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question>
from which it will be seen that it is an expression most of us will never
have any need for. As you say, it is all too often used by people who mean
"to raise the question...", perhaps because it sounds clever.
JD