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?

“Laughing to the bank” — a pointless excursion

My earliest recollection of the original expression is in a quote attributed to Liberace when he was first making his mark. A born-too-soon proto-Elton John flamboyant, he somehow emerged in the upright 1950s, a period in which he inevitably endured a lot of metaphorical flamethrowing. Asked whether he was upset by some mocking commentary, he replied. ”Yes; I cried all the way to the bank.” Rimshot. Of course, the point of the phrase is the turnaround on the word “bank,” supplying the unexpectedly thumbed nose. So the “Yes, I cried” is sarcasm, but we don’t find out until the sentence’s end–which tells us the joke is on the speaker’s critics, and perhaps on us also. The subtext: Maybe YOU think I was bothered, but in fact,  I simply reminded myself–and now remind you–that what I’m criticized for is precisely what’s making me very successful. The whole point is the surprise in going from ”cried” to ”bank.” If the speaker were not apparently admitting upset at the start, there’d be nothing to reverse, and thus no point to the remark.

Yet people keep using the phrase with wording that includes some version of “I laughed all the way to the bank.” Since there’s no reversal here, the remark in that form typically has, in effect, no meaning whatsoever. It amounts to saying, “Yes, I was fine; and then I was fine.” You’d think that such a vacancy would be glaringly obvious (since the missing turnaround is not exactly a subtle kind of sarcasm).  But, uh–apparently, it’s not.