Are you begging the question correctly?

I was guilty of not using this phrase correctly either. Someone corrected me several years ago, and now it has become one of my biggest pet peeves even though I can't claim I always knew how to use it properly. I get that not everyone is going to understand how to use "beg the question" in the right situation, but I do find it frustrating when I watch shows like The Big Bang Theory, where the genius Sheldon often corrects people's grammar, and yet the show has actually had characters using that phrase incorrectly (as well as "the reason is because", but that's for another entry!).

The question here affects not so much grammar as semantics. The verb "to beg the question" is actually a term from philosophy, more specifically the study of logic. "Begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any evidence to demonstrate why the statement is true in the first place.

An example of this would be something like the following:

"Bob is trustworthy because I can trust him."

As you can see, this really isn't quality evidence or proof of Bob's trustworthiness. Moreover, you can also see that in begging the question, there is actually no question involved from a grammatical point of view. There is an implied question about the logic used in this statement, but no one is actually asking a question.

What happens in most cases is that people say "begs the question" when they mean "raises the question".

For example:


not


"The lack of snow removal on city streets begs the question, where are our property taxes going?" 

but

"The lack of snow removal on city streets raises the question, where are our property taxes going?"

The former statement is the one you would most typically hear, but it is definitely incorrect.

There's rarely a time when most of us would use "begging the question" in everyday conversation, so just remember, you're more than likely trying to say "raises the question".

What's the difference between...

There are a lot of homophones that I've wondered about because I've seen the spellings used interchangeably--or at least that's how it seemed.  I often chalk things up to British-American spelling differences, but I learned of a couple recently while proofreading a book that reminded me to actually look up these things rather than forgetting to do so.

The first word is "blonde" and "blond".  I did actually think that blonde is the correct spelling for no real reason, but it turns out there is difference when you use one as an adjective and one as a noun.  I'd use the e when it's a noun, as in That guy I met the other night was a blonde.  However, when I want to describe the hair colour, I'd have to spell it without the e, as in Her hair was short and blond.  My first mystery is solved!

The second word is "discrete" and "discreet".  The first spelling is the less common one and refers to separating or detaching from others and is the antonym to "continuous".  When I thought about it after seeing this definition, I realised I had most likely seen this word used a lot in the academic journal articles and textbooks I read in university because they would often refer to discrete units of things.  The latter spelling is the more common one we would use all the time when we're trying to be secretive or just covert about something.  One definition I read even stated that it means to judicious, cautious, discerning, and prudent.  Now I know the difference, and my second mystery is solved! It's actually a relief to me! ;o)

As assault on superlatives

I know I've talked about superlatives before, but really, Grammarly, a popular editing and proofreading company with a large following and active presence on Facebook,  committed one of my biggest pet peeves the other day.  They used the term "more clear" instead of "clearer."  There are really easy rules to follow regarding superlatives, as this little lesson demonstrates: http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/adjectivesuper.htm.  In common usage these days, I hear a lot of people using "most something" when it should be the -er or -est suffix to the root word.  It drives me bananas whenever I hear it, and what bugs me more is that I catch myself doing sometimes because I keep hearing it!

Of Chinese New Year and Ukrainian Christmas

I hear people were using the phrase Chinese New Year a lot.  It even gets abbreviated to CNY sometimes.   Recently, though, it dawned on me that this isn't actually the best terminology for this occasion, and it surprised me even more that in Canada, where people try to be politically correct to a fault, that no one has as yet taken up this cause.  The more correct phrase is actually Lunar New Year.  It's already known that Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar, but thing is that many other Asian countries celebrate this event as well, meaning that it could be just as correct to call it Vietnamese New Year or even Singaporean New year, for that matter!  To incorporate all the countries that celebrate it, Lunar New Year is definitely a better option.  I assume the Chinese New Year name sticks because there are just so many Chinese, population-wise, that maybe that's just what you'll end up hearing more often anyway.

I also wonder if that same cause holds true for Ukrainian Christmas in Canada.  There are a lot of Ukrainians here, especially in the prairies, and they also celebrate Christmas according to a different calendar.  But it turns out that it's not just the Ukrainians that do it.  Any group of Orthodox believers or practitioners celebrate Christmas at the same time, and non-Ukrainians actually refer to it as Orthodox Christmas.  This holiday is celebrated by many other Eastern Europeans (as that's where you tend to find more Orthodox churches), but it's also celebrated by the Coptic Egyptians, who follow a lot of Orthodox practice.

I guess if no one's offended by the less generic terms, I'm not going to get too upset about it either.  It's just that I do find it a little odd that in Canada, we're not using the most politically correct terms for these holidays.

To loan or to lend?

For a long time, I've been wondering about when I should use loan as a verb rather than lend.  I thought there were actual grammar rules for this, but it turns out it's one of those British/American differences again!  I don't know how many times that has confused me over the years.

In American English, loan and lend are used interchangeably as a verb, but not in British English.

Now, you may wonder what this means for Canadian English.  Because our English tends to be a mixture of American and British English, both forms are very likely as acceptable in Canadian English as they are in American English.

Personally, now that I know the difference, I think I'm going to use loan as a noun only and lend as the verb because I feel like it's less confusing that way.

Condiments for meals

For a long time, it has really bugged me in restaurants when you see a description of an item served with au jus.  This is one of the French terms we use in English that just really irks me when it isn't used correctly.  Au jus is not a noun but an adjective in French and describes the way that a dish is served, usually some type of sandwich.  The juice itself is a beef-based juice, more like a broth, used for dipping your sandwich into, so on a menu, you could say "Sandwich au jus," and you should understand that your sandwich is coming with beef broth or juice.  That would be a more accurate description.  It would be like saying about pie a la mode that your pie is being served with a la mode.  It just wouldn't make sense because a la mode is not a noun but describes the way that a dessert is served, with ice cream.  Sadly, I don't think I have any hope of changing the world to fix this problem! ;o)

Numbers and amounts

As promised--and I hope you weren't holding your breath--I thought I'd continue from my last post about countable and uncountable nouns.

Now that you know the difference between these two, another difference that you should know about, other than  when to use "fewer" and "less", is the difference between "number" and "amount".  The use of these words is when you're referring to how much of something there is.

With countable nouns, you use "number" and with uncountable nouns, "amount".

Example with countable nouns: There was a large number of birds chirping out my window this morning.
Example with uncountable nouns: There was a small amount of sugar left over after all our Christmas baking.

So it would be incorrect to say "There was a large amount of birds" because "birds" is a countable noun.  I hear people use "amount" a lot when it should be "number".  Usually, people don't think of it the other way around, though.  I've never heard someone say, "There was a small number of sugar".  I think it sounds so funny that people just know not to use that!

Now that I think about it, there's a difference between the use of "much" and "many" with countable and uncountable nouns.  I guess that's for yet another entry!