We beg to differ from Mr. Now on this point; what he calls the "more recent meaning" we call an ignorant error. It annoys us tremendously when we encounter it because it indicates a failure of the modern system of education. So much has been forgotten in the past hundred years!

The phrase "begging the question" is of course the vulgar equivalent of "petitio principii" - we see where the "begging" comes in now do not we.

Both the Oxford English Dictionary and Alonzo Church emphasize the fallacious nature of begging the question; here is Doctor Church and Mr. Garnett seems to be on the same track as he:

"Petitio principii, or begging the question, is a fallacy involving the assumption as premisses of one or more propositions which are identical with (or in simple fashion equivalent to) the conclusion to be proved, or which would require the conclusion for their proof, or which are stronger than the conclusion and contain it as a particular case or otherwise as an immediate consequence. There is a fallacy, however, only if the premisses assumed (without proof) are illegitimate for some other reason than merely their relation to the conclusion - e.g., if they are not among the avowed presuppositions of the argument, or if they are not admitted by an opponent in a dispute."

We are then entirely with Mr. Patio above and indeed would go so far as to remove the unnecessary we think word "traditionally" from his reply.

Let us so as to make the true meaning entirely clear now offer Members two examples from the literature.

1) Richard Whately, in his Elements of Logic (1826), reports this example: "To allow every man unlimited freedom of speech must always be, on the whole, advantageous to the state; for it is highly conducive to the interests of the community that each individual should enjoy a liberty, perfectly unlimited, of expressing his sentiments."

2) Logicians have long sought to establish the reliability of inductive procedures by establishing the truth of what is called "the principle of induction." This is the principle that the laws of nature will operate tomorrow as they operate today, that in basic ways nature is essentially uniform, and that therefore we may rely upon past experience to guide our conduct in the future. "That the future will be essentially like the past" is the claim at issue - but this claim, never doubted in ordinary life, turns out to be very difficult to prove. Yet some thinkers have claimed that they could prove it by showing that, when we have in the past relied upon the inductive principle, we have always found that this method has helped us to achieve our objectives. They ask: why conclude that the future will be like the past? Because it always has been like the past. But, as David Hume the tremendously fat Scotch historian who kept falling down into the bogs of his native land pointed out in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding of 1747, this common argument is a petitio, it begs the question. For the point at issue is whether nature will continue to behave regularly; that it has done so in the past cannot serve as proof that it will do so in the future - unless one assumes the very principle that is here in question: that the future will be like the past! And thus distressingly fat old David Hume, granting that in the past the future has been like the past, nevertheless asks us the telling question: How can we know that future futures will be like past futures? They may be so, of course - but we may not assume that they will for the sake of proving that they will.

That probably suffices for to-day but perhaps to-morrow we shall do the really right thing and go back to Aristotle, since what with him and the nineteenth-century philosophers and logicians there is a great deal more that may be said about the subject.

This is surely evidence enough (if indeed it were even needed) that the Member should rethink his whole abrasive approach to the music of Shostakovich as well as to that of others he condemns in such a begging manner!

Home of the Big Boy Pedantry-burger

That formulation is pretty strange. How könnte you begeh a Geburtstag?

For the benefit of non-German speakers: How 'could' you 'commit' a 'birthday'? Wouldn't you just have (or celebrate) a birthday?

Hm Learn something new every day about one's native tongue. Must inspect it a bit closer.

den er 2008 begangen hätte would be sufficiently counterfactual.

Shyn't mere owch goûte.

It is, but it was chosen as the Foot in Mouth winner so it can be plain English but be wrong in what it expresses. I have to say, though, that English restaurants can do very good pasta. 

Isn't the point akin to George Dubya (allegedly) saying 'the French don't even have a word for 'entrepreneur''?