Grammar Hammer: Can You Really Beg a Question?
I’m not often willing to admit when I make a mistake (especially a grammatical one), so it begs the question, can a staunch grammarian still make mistakes?
Yes, and I just did.
Many of the articles I read as inspiration for this column talk about the evolution of language. Specifically, how something that was 100% incorrect in 1950 is now so commonplace that it’s no longer viewed as a mistake. A couple of weeks ago, I debunked the urban grammatical myth of ending sentences with prepositions as a grammatical faux pas.
“Begging the question” is another example of the grammatical mine field we trudge through in our communications. The actual definition of “begging the question” comes from logic. It’s used to indicate that someone has made a conclusion based on a premise that lacks support. It can be a premise that’s independent from the conclusion or in a simpler form, the premise can be just a restatement of the conclusion itself (definition, courtesy of Grammar Girl).
Read the full post by PR Newswire customer content services manager Cathy Spicer on Beyond PR.
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