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Going off topic: While I am not one of those who say that this usage is incorrect, I am still a little surprised by it. But if such a careful writer as John Fairbairn uses it, then I suppose it has now become part of standard English.
I'm not normally a fan of going off topic but a starving man will east even a McDonald's hamburger
First, as an allegedly careful writer, I'd point out that I did not say "beg the question", but as a journalist I also say that I don't consider myself a careful writer - that's what sub-editors are for.
But I am well aware of the controversy, at least as an historical item, simply because it was one of those things I came across at school. Even then, though (over 60 years ago), we were being taught not to worry about it, or about things like split infinitives or a/an in front of words like hotel. Then there were even more distinguished grammarians such as Ernest Gowers, whose book Plain words was strongly recommended reading when people of my generation started work (I think it may have even been required reading in the civil service), and they too took a common-sense approach to English, mocking especially grammatical rules that were based (ignorantly) on Latin grammar.
In those 60-odd years I don't think I have ever come across an example of the "classical" sense of beg the question outside of sterile discussions about the old usage, and young people now don't seem to even know (good split infinitive!) there was an old usage. Because of such lack of contact with the old usage (plus my objection to that ungrammatical "the") I have now totally forgotten the old meaning, and have not the slightest interest in looking it up. Nevertheless, because a writer should usually try not to irritate readers (especially Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, who seems mercifully to have passed away also), I do still feel a little prick of conscience when using the term, and so will alter it, to things like "beg questions" or "that begs an interesting question." I may even change it to "raise the question". However, that usually seems too defeatist to me, but I'm sure the existence of such alternatives is why the modern sense of beg the question has evolved. That plus the fact that it's a very useful phrase, whereas (from what I remember of it) the old usage is a useful as a fart in a perfume factory.
This evolution by analogy is constantly at work, anyway, but I was taken aback by a new one just last night. I was reading a travelogue by Robert Southey, who was Poet Laureate a couple of hundred years ago. We may safely assume he was a careful writer, and I did find his style old-fashioned but very attractive. But one phrase of his was new to me. He had to stay in inns of dubious reputation and several times says he had a nightmare. Except that the way he put it was " The Night Mare came again last night." I know the phrase has nothing to do with horses (mare is from an old Anglo-Saxon word for goblin), but I was interested that (a) he majusculed the goblin and (b) spoke of it as "coming." Since I think the old belief was that the goblin sat on your chest as you slept, Southey's usage seems more apt. But we have changed that into "have a nightmare" and I presume that's by analogy with "have a dream" (though, intgrestingly, we seem a little uncomfortable with "have a day dream" - we seem to prefer to make it a verb, to daydream).
Talking of sub-editors reminds me of two language arguments I have had in my working career.
One was the use of "billion" in the modern (American) sense. As an economics correspondent, I used to go to briefings with the Chancellor the Exchequer and hear him tell us how many billions he was going to spend on this and that. I wrote my story quoting him, only to find that when it had passed through the hands of the sub-editors, it had been changed into "thousand millions" (the British billion then being a million million. In those far-off days, such a vast sum didn't exist in real life and so there was no real risk of following the snappier American usage, as many people were already doing. And I wanted to do that, too, and eventually won the argument at work, but it took a couple of high-powered meetings.
The other argument I didn't win, in the sense that the minority refused to give way in this case, which was the meaning of decade. To me, a decade is ten years. But we had a chief sub-editor who believed it referred specifically and only to a period that commenced with the number zero. This was the era of the Swinging Sixties, and so he thought the period 1960-1969 was a decade, but 1961-to 1970 was not. But he went further. Since, in his view, a decade was defined by the -ty word, it didn't even have to have ten years in it. Which in a way I agreed with. Not being a numbers-obsessed guy, I would call the period 1965-1975 a decade, even though it spans 11 years. But the chief sub considered that to cover TWO decades, the sixties and the seventies. I believe the dictionaries give support to both sides, and so tends to avoid the word now.
To bring the topic back to go, if I do have a reputation for being careful (unwarranted, but "knowledgeable" I'll accept
), I suspect it stems from insisting here on proper understanding of Japanese terms. I have no real objection to people saying sabaki to mean light and flexible shape, if they find that sufficient or useful. But I do like them to be aware that the different Japanese meaning is alive and well, and is very different, more useful and has more associations.
Incidentally, in language discussions of this type, the differences between American and British English often come up (British English actually being more widespread globally, by the way). I have no problems with American usages (except modern slang) such "gotten", or "bring" instead of "take", because these came from Scots anyway, and I also like to stress to foreign speakers of English that they vastly overestimate the differences. But one amusing difference, new to me, came up earlier this week, in a local (British) supermarket. They were advertising their cafe, and encouraging parents to take their children along. Parents are often reluctant if they have to pay for a full meal which the little brats only peck at. So, the ad men came up with the idea of half-price meals for "Little Peckers".