IT DOESN'T BEG THE QUESTION
Well, that's become fairly standard usage of the phrase. But yeah, technically not correct. I can't think of another simple way to convey, "which leads us to the logical question" or somesuch.
While descriptivists and other such laissez-faire linguists are content to allow the misconception to fall into the vernacular, it cannot be denied that logic and philosophy stand to lose an important conceptual label should the meaning of BTQ become diluted to the point that we must constantly distinguish between the traditional usage and the erroneous "modern" usage. This is why we fight.
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Huh.
That and "moot."
What's the popular usage of "moot"? I've heard far too many people substitute "mute" for "moot," which earns them a hearty bitchslap (even if it's just in my mind), but, when I *do* hear "moot" used, it's always used correctly.
t edit
I mean, even *Rick Springfield* knew the right way to use it....
::looks at stopwatch::
Evolution to grammar in less than a minute. I'm impressed.
"It's a moo point. It's like a cow's point. It doesn't matter."
it cannot be denied that logic and philosophy stand to lose an important conceptual label should the meaning of BTQ become diluted
That's not right. BTQ is replaceable with assumes the question or assumes the argument.
If we were created by a loving, omnipotent God, why does He allow us to keep having the proscriptivist/descriptivist debate?
That's not right. BTQ is replaceable with assumes the question or assumes the argument.
Agreed. Things that are hard to understand should be replaced with things that are easy to understand if the easy things do the job just as well. It's like, uh, the evolution of language.
If we were created by a loving, omnipotent God, why does He allow us to keep having the proscriptivist/descriptivist debate?
Because even God needs to watch something funny once in a while.
Perhaps we need to establish a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Grammar ... or possibly Language as a whole.
"Which leads me to the question..."
I dunno. It's one of the few philosophy thingies I've ever understood right away, so I'm like Rainman/Wapner about it.
