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Comment by B1FF_PSUVM | Hacker News Reader

> Which begs the question

No, it doesn't - http://begthequestion.info

I gave up this fight a long time ago. I thought it was frustrating because it was so blatantly wrong and unclear, but someone once said something that convinced me to stop pointing it out. It's sort of two parts:

1. Language changes, which is fine

2. If someone says "It begs the question" and follows it up with the question it "begs" (which they almost always do) it becomes clear that they don't mean "begs the question" in the traditional sense.

Clearly they always mean to say "It raises the question", but "It begs the question" also makes sense if you think about it, though it's an awkward use of "begs"

Being a non native in English I'm really grateful for this comment. I've never really understood this BTQ expression.

Hopefully the parent of your post was joking - the site he linked to is a "joke" site - but either way, it's misleading and unhelpful (particularly to non-English speakers) to pretend that "begs the question" was used incorrectly there by tehabe. It wasn't.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/beg-the-q...

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/beg-the...

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beg%20the%20questi...

I understand that language is dynamic, and colloquial misuse turns into accepted use, and so nonplussed means unimpressed and disinterested means uninterested, but with this expression I will stand with the pedants and the original meaning.

Prepare for a long, frustrating stand. Professional writers and journalists misuse it 100% of the times I have seen it used. I have seen a single person in my entire life use it correctly, and it was a random forum post about something stupid like a video game.

Also, you can add "droll" to the long list of misused words.

I think the same way about droll as I do begs the question.[1]

I don't see the point of insisting the original/archaic meaning of a word is 'correct' if, in the English-speaking world we live in today, essentially nobody uses it or understands it in that sense.

[1] I certainly do not think the same about nonplussed, however. I've never heard that word being used for unimpressed before, but it appears to be simply an Americanism; one I hope never catches on elsewhere.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/nonplus...

Of professional writers, I find that droll is used correctly maybe half the time. Which is frustrating, because either definition is a polar opposite and has a pretty profound effect on a scene. It's only from context several sentences later do you figure out which definition they meant.

99% of English speakers do not understand it either, and misuse it constantly.

Maybe they use their own language perfectly fine and it's the meaning of the idiom that has changed?

Language can both be wrong to its original meaning and also accepted.

It's not even Vermont, he just wanted to trash it.

I didn't. When I thought about it, my guess was West Virginia. But I was wrong, in absolute number as per capita.

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