The phrase "begs the question" has suffered of late from a great amount of abuse. In response, I'm going to be, as this photo suggests, a little gnomic. I could go work on my garden. Someone observing me, could blog: "This begs the question, does he know which is weed and which is a flower?" This would disclose not only that I have querulous neighbors, but that at least one of them is ignorant of the vocabulary of logical fallacies, the domain whence comes the abused expression. Proper use: "It is obvious that I know which one is a weed, because I tug certain plants right out of the ground with gusto!" "That begs the question." My hypothetical riposte is an effort to prove something by presuming what was to be proved. If someone suspected that I was tugging the wrong plants out of the ground, he wouldn't be persuaded otherwise by my reflection on my own gusto when I do so. But let's get back to the misuse. I suggest that...
