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Submit Response is a weblog by Jack Mottram, a journalist who lives in Glasgow, Scotland. There are 1308 posts in the archives. You can subscribe to a feed. This post was made on and belongs in the misc. category. The previous post was , and the next post is .

Begging The Question

In the last two days, I have heard on BBC Radio 4 (motto: Intelligent Speech) no less than four instances of the term ‘begging the question’ being used incorrectly.

One - although I was half asleep at the time and can’t be completely sure - seemed to come from the mouth of John Humphrys who, as a noted champion of Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots & Leaves, the popular paean to linguistic pedantry, should bloody well know better.

Much as I would love to give in to the temptation to run amok with an axe in Broadcasting House, it is probably better to explain why this drives me into a frothing homicidal rage.

Begging the question - otherwise known as Petitio Principii, or the deductive fallacy of circularity, or the fallacy of presumption - is not a hard concept to grasp, but a slightly tricky one to explain: in short, one begs the question when one cites as a premise that which assumes the conclusion to be true. For example:

A is true because B is true, and B is true because A is true.

Or, with a dash of complexity:

X is true because Y is true, and Y is true because Z is true, and Z is true because X is true.

So, if someone responds to a question you have asked with an answer that prompts a further question, it is absolutely not fucking correct to gibber, “Well, that rather begs the question…” as a means of introducing your secondary inquiry. What you ought really to say is, “Well, that rather raises the question…”

Okay?

Good.

Any errors of style, grammar, punctuation or spelling you may find in the above are, of course, wholly deliberate.

Posted at 6pm on 03/03/04 by Jack Mottram to the misc. category.
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  1. Fab! I thought my guy was the only one who gets pissed off at this ;)

    Posted by Anne at 5pm on 05.03.04

  2. Good to hear of another chronic pedant!

    To be honest, though, I’m more upset by the horror of ‘imply’ and ‘infer’ being used interchangeably than this - especially since the incorrect usage is supposedly legitimised by both Collins and Miriam-Webster’s dictionaries. The blood boils just thinking about it.

    (But I must admit I’m guilty of some dreadful apostrophe abuse myself, especially in quick emails.)

    Posted by Jack at 6pm on 05.03.04

  3. ‘one begs a question when one cites as a premise that which assumes the conclusion to be true’ - I’m sorry, I don’t understand that. Please use ‘begging the question’ in a sentence for me so that I can be less stupid.

    Incidentally, your apostrophe abuse is not as offensive as your tendency to spell the word ‘weird’ as ‘wierd.’ (shudder.)

    Posted by bunnyboiler at 2pm on 07.03.04

  4. Here you go then…

    Sensible Person: So, you reckon there’s a God, yeah? Any proof for that?

    God Botherer: Why yes! In the Bible, I am sure you are aware, it says that God exists. Now, the Bible is the word of God, and He speaks only the truth. Therefore everything in the Bible is true, therefore God must exist! Do you see?!

    Sensible Person: Uh, no, you’re just begging the question there, you big silly.

    Posted by Jack at 5pm on 08.03.04

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