Comments on: It begs the question, why are you such an annoying pedant?

By: clare

clare — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:14:15 +0000

haha! when i read the title of that i thought “god, i HATE it when people use that phrase totally wrongly”. 🙂 then i read your post.

By: M-----l

M-----l — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:02:51 +0000

I stopped using the word douche when you told me to, but I’m going to continue begging questions because the site you linked to is dumb.

By: Jodi

Jodi — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:43:31 +0000

I like that. . . rhetorical fallacy lacking the structure to even be a logical fallacy. I bet you’d have gotten better than a B- in Logic.

By: Kurtis

Kurtis — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:39:27 +0000

Hm. For the page of explanation you link to, I think they do a poor job of explaining the phrase’s meaning. It says that people misunderstand “question.” What people really misunderstand is “beg,” which in this case means “avoid,” not “entreat.” The term “question,” means pretty much what you think it does. It might be better to say “it begs the REAL question,” to make things clearer. Or better yet, avoid the phrase entirely. Say “it sidesteps the real question.” Say “You’re presuming we all agree on _____ and we don’t.” Or say “That’s a circular argument.”

Or as Ricky Gervais would put it: “YOU’RE TALKING SHIT!”

I would also say that it’s a rhetorical fallacy, not a logical one. That might be too fine a distinction, but I think of logical fallacies of being formal ones, and rhetorical as informal. Most fallacies are rhetorical. They lack the formal structure to even be a logical fallacy.