I Beg of You: Don't Beg the Question!

Begging the question is a type of logical fallacy, very similar to circular reasoning. "Begging the question is what one does in an argument when one assumes what one claims to be proving." (Skeptic's Dictionary)

Begging the question implicitly or explicitly makes an assumption and then proceeds to make an argument based on the assumption, without bothering to prove it first. So behind the assumption, there is a question begging to be asked. For example:

Since all kindergarten teachers are playful, you must have a lot of fun being in Ms. Wizzle's kindergarten class!

This argument assumes that all kindergarten teachers are playful and goes on to make an argument based on that unproven premise. This argument (quite properly) begs the question: are all kindergarten teachers actually playful?

All this raises (but does not beg) the question: Is this really important? Well, yes.

Aside from this misusage causing the ears of grammarians, debaters, and logicians everywhere to bleed profusely, this is a very specific term that is still in use with its original meaning. Language is not static, and it changes all the time, but stealing a word from a specific discipline and degrading it into slang renders it useless to those who need to use it in its original sense. It's a little more damaging to the language than using the word "groovy" as an exclamation.

It also raises (but does not beg) the question: Is there a hole in the English language that must be filled with this particular phrase? And the answer, of course, is NO. There are many ways to indicate that something has raised a question, or made one wonder, or moved one to scratch one's head about something.

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