Aron Griffis wrote: > Duncan wrote: [Wed Jan 04 2006, 02:49:39PM EST] > >>Forget formal logic, it still "begs the question", in that it "begs >>that the question be asked". > > > No, the reason you used the expression "begs the question" is because > it sounds familiar to you. Otherwise you would have said something > like "brings up the question." The fact is that "begs the question" > is an expression with a particular meaning, and it shouldn't be > confused with the sum of its parts. Altough, the primary function of the language is as a means of communication. While I must agree that 'official' meaning of 'begs the question' is not 'brings up the question', I believe the number of English users who understands this statement in 'brings up' meaning exceeds the number of formalists.
English is not a standard, until somebody RFC'd it. It's evolving, we
saw the career of podcasting, I believe we will see in 20 years:
begs the question:
brings up the question. (archaic: ...)
So, why not make this linguistic debate EOT for now... and resume it
with Gentoo 2020.0 ?
Best wishes,
Tomasz Mloduchowski
- Gentoo User
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