A Word, Please:

Recently, on one of the baseball blogs my husband reads, the blogger veered from the topic of sports to talk about the common misuse of the expression “to beg the question.” The blog post included a link to a column, written by someone else, on the “beg the question” question.

My husband thought it was a good column topic for me. But, hating to feel like I’m jumping someone else’s train, I wasn’t too keen on the idea.

A few days later I was at a lunch with a group of women writer friends, and one of the attendees started talking about the common misuse of “beg the question.” I should do a column on it, she said.

Nah, I replied. That issue is being discussed to death right now. No need for me to chime in.

Then, two days later, a student in a copy-editing class I’m teaching mentioned how often she notices people misusing the term “beg the question.”

That was my tipping point — the moment when I realized that the cosmos were begging me to question “beg the question.” So here, dear readers, is your local language columnist’s take on the matter.

I first heard the term “to beg the question” in logic class in college, which is really where it’s most at home. Before then I had never heard the expression, so I was never in danger of learning it wrong. The term is rooted in a very specific logic concept that does not mean the same thing as “to raise a question” or “to dodge a question.” Yet that’s exactly how many people use it.

“This phrase has not traditionally meant ‘to evade the issue’ or ‘to invite an obvious question,’ as some mistakenly believe,” writes Bryan Garner in “Garner’s Modern American Usage.”

In logic, “to beg the question” means to arrive at a conclusion one of three illogical ways. You could either base your conclusion on a premise that itself is unproven: “I know you stole my wallet because your lip is twitching.” That can be a pretty clever strategy when you don’t want to let a little thing like wrongness stop you from winning an argument. Your opponent may be too embarrassed to admit that he’s not up on the latest research on lip twitching. So he may not call your bluff.

The second way to beg the question is really just a more specific version of the first: You base your argument on, well, your argument. “I know you’re a thief because you steal things.” That is begging the question in its most classic form. It, too, can help you win an argument you would otherwise surely lose because, though it’s clear to everyone involved that you’re full of malarkey, this tactic could make your opponent so mad that his head explodes.

The third and far less common meaning of “to beg the question” is to base your argument on something that, while it may be true, doesn’t prove your point. “I know you’re a thief because Tiger Woods is a scoundrel.” It’s a crime unto logic itself.

So, technically, it’s wrong to use “beg the question” to mean “raise the question.” But, as these things always go, if enough people use something wrong, that eventually amounts to collective agreement that it’s now right. So some experts are loosening their definition of “beg the question.”

Get in touch JUNE CASAGRANDE is a freelance writer and author of “Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies” and “Mortal Syntax: 101 Language Choices That Will Get You Clobbered by the Grammar Snobs — Even If You’re Right.” She may be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.