Let’s stop begging that confusing question

To “beg the question” has a clear traditional meaning, which concerns an error of logic. It means that while you are supposedly addressing a question in order to prove it, your argument is flawed: One of your basic steps assumes the truth of what you are about to prove. In effect, then, you are arguing in a circle and proving nothing.

But the verb “beg” here is certainly confusing. And we are in an era when such niceties of formal discourse have been overlooked so long that the term has, in common use, lost its meaning. People rarely employ it properly, in its traditional (i.e., correct) sense. But many obviously feel that it lends a nicely upper-crust tone, so they grab it and use it to express a much simpler concept than it actually involves. That is, they use “begs the question” as if it meant ”raises the question [of X, Y or Z].”

A suggestion, then: Since the original meaning is now becoming more and more obscure to most of us, let’s avoid it, except in formal writing, by and for people who understand the phrase. In everyday contexts, let’s just say something like this, when we need to: “Your argument here is incorrect, because it assumes what you’re trying to prove.” And, on the other hand, when we want to say that “this raises the question [of X],” why not actually say “this raises the question [of X]” — rather than being highfalutin and totally wrong?