I'll be sure to get it. Always enjoy reading about fallacies. And even though I
sometimes can't resist the urge to push buttons and pull chains, I do have my
own set of language bugaboos. Right now it's "Beg the question." My wife and I
argue about this one all the time.
There's a character on a popular TV crime show, NCIS: Los Angeles, whose name
is Henrietta, also known as Hettie. She is played by the talented and
infinitely durable Linda Hunt. Hettie, to say the least, is one superbly
intelligent creature, not to mention knowledgeable about many esoteric things.
Two or three times now she's used the phrase "this begs the question" in the
sense that "this demands an answer" or variations thereof. That's wrong. Not to
be pedantic (ouch!), but begging the question properly means something more
like circular reasoning.
I'll opine to Esteemed Wife that Hettie is wrong, and she'll lecture me about
the purpose of language being to communicate, and if it communicates, how can
it be wrong? She believes in organic language, and if no one except you and me
and Chris and a few others on this list know the real meaning of beg the
question, then the much more common (and incorrect) definition will come to be
the correct definition. I allow as how she's probably right, but that doesn't
make it right.
She smirks, but then I point out that regardless of what's right and what's
wrong and what's organic and evolutionary, etc., a character such as Hettie
would _never_ misuse beg the question. In fact, she would correct in no
uncertain terms any of her people who did so misuse it.
--Bob
On May 27, 2011, at 6:36 AM, Andrew Fildes wrote:
> You need my book - 'A Complete Fallacy' - available for Kindle on Amazon
> right now! :-)
--
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