Re: Death of the English Language

[Nicholas Clifford clifford@xxxxxxxx]

 On 10/18/2010 9:33 AM, Patricia McLaughlin wrote:
> I meant to drop out of this listserv as soon as I found a taker for my old
> XY books and disks--thank you very much, Otis Port!--but as with so many
> things, I haven't got around to it. So: Think: Isn't there something we can
> do to end or at least reduce the near-universal misuse of "begs the
> question"? I'm teaching a writing class this term, and I feel as if I've
> typed the line "COMMAS AND PERIODS ALWAYS GO INSIDE THE QUOTE MARKS" about a
> million times to no effect. Lately sometimes I don't even notice--not to
> mention correct and comment on--use of≪it's≫ as a possessive and≪its≫
> as a contraction. Punctuation is used promiscuously, or maybe it's just
> decorative. I can't seem to persuade them to turn off Autocorrect in Word,
> so I'm always having to redact≪defiantly≫ to≪definitely≫. (That's how
> Autocorrect "fixes" the misspelling≪definatly≫--it took me years to
> figure out what all the defiance was about.) And you know that, after
> another decade or two of texting, it will all be moot anyway. But "begs the
> question" is different: It's epidemic in spoken language, not just in print,
> and people often misuse it with a sort of show-offy smugness that's
> infuriating, given that they're using it to mean something it doesn't and
> can't mean and never has meant. It's much worse than≪hopefilly≫, which
> grammar nazis used to complain about so much. The problem, as I see it, is
> that it's hopeless to restore its actual meaning, because you'd need to be
> able to explain≪petitio principii≫, which you can't do without
> introducing the idea of logic. Clearly impossible. Instead, I suggest a
> campaign to ban≪begs the question≫ entirely. Its misuse can be replaced
> with "poses the question" or "raises the question," and its rare and
> inevitably misunderstood proper use replaced with "avoids the question,"
> "skirts the question," or "pretends to answer the question while actually
> avoiding it." Given that we still haven't passed the equal rights amendment,
> it's unlikely that we can amend the Constitution to outlaw≪begs the
> question≫. Maybe we can get to Oprah, or else launch a grass-roots campaign
> like the one that persuaded SNL to hire Betty White. Or start with a
> California referendum? Or maybe you have a better idea?
Fortunately, I've never heard "begs the question" used in its improper
(poses the question) sense, and hopefully (!!!!) I never shall. However,
on another list to which I belong, and which was arguing about the term
"hopefully" (as used above), one of our number pointed out that,
according to the OED or some such, the first use of "hopefully" in the
sense of "I hope that" comes from, of all people, Cotton Mather in the
17th century, though whether he used it before or after his
witch-hunting career, I don't know.
It's the prepositions that irk me. How many times have I heard NPR say
something like "thousands of French citizens took to the streets in
protest of government plans to raise the retirement age," when what the
station means is "in protest against government plans etc. etc. etc. "

Nicholas Clifford
at some point (not now) when I need a new computer I'm coming back to
this list to learn how to run XyWrite on Windows 7, or whatever else
will be needed. I also use Nota Bene a lot, but I can't live without Xy.