That's because the correct meaning of "begging the question" is completely non-intuitive. I challenge anyone to give me a good explanation of how the meaning of the term is in any way related to the meaning of the English words "begging the question", other than "well, that's what the Latin term translates to."
I'm bothered by people who say "could care less", but I'm bothered even more by people who insist on "correcting" use of the phrase "begging the question". This begs the question, am I a hypocrite?
I was confused about that too, but then I discovered that there are some alternate definitions for the word 'beg' which are (from dictionary.reference.com):
"to fail or refuse to come to grips with; avoid;"
"to take for granted without basis or justification"
I'm not sure whether these definitions of 'beg' or the "begging the question" phrase came first. I'm also not sure which definition of 'beg' came first, and why on Earth the completely separate meanings got merged into one word.
I challenge anyone to give me a good explanation of how the meaning of the term is in any way related to the meaning of the English words "begging the question", other than "well, that's what the Latin term translates to."
Heh, you should stay far from the field of law in that case.
I'm also not advocating running around correcting everyone who wants to use "begs the question" in this fashion. Personally, I'll use "raises the question" but accept your use of begs. Which is my point. "Begs the question" is gone now. It means something else entirely. The right time for insisting on correctness in this case was probably more than 100 years ago.
From the site: "This is a common error of usage", 'the erroneous "modern" usage'
This tells me that the author completely misunderstands how language works. It assumes that there is a 'correct' way of using a word, and that a word is something more than an arbitrary collection of sounds.
No, you're not a hypocrite, but you are being inconsistent. That's not necessarily a bad thing, unless it leads to hypocrisy. There's a fine line between defending a point of view and defending it in such a way that you really can't reasonably defend the opposite point of view anymore.
I'm bothered by people who say "could care less", but I'm bothered even more by people who insist on "correcting" use of the phrase "begging the question". This begs the question, am I a hypocrite?