Monday, February 17, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[skullturf]

When I have my own grocery store, the express signs will say "No more than 10 items".

[econgator]

When I have my own grocery store, the express signs will say "No more than 10 items".

It's only useful if you allow enforcement.

If you aren't going to enforce them -- Walmart -- then why bother even having them?

[harrumph]

We're having less/fewer USB comments in the last pages.

[bpmod]

When I have my own grocery store, the express signs will say "No more than 10 items".

It's only useful if you allow enforcement.

If you aren't going to enforce them -- Walmart -- then why bother even having them?

I am considered rude when I ask the person in front of me in line "Which 12 of those items are you planning to purchase?"

Brian

[bpmod]

less:much::fewer:many

Simple rule to help you keep it straight.

Brian

[Magna]

My bete noire is "begs the question," though (incorrectly used to mean "prompts the question" or "causes me to ask").

You're right, but that one is probably never going to return to its original meaning; people assume that 'beg' means 'demand', rather than whatever Ye Olde definition of 'beg' the original phrase used.

Yep. I'm aware of the historical meaning of "begs the question", but I'm not much of a stickler for this particular one.

"Begs the question" might have history on its side, but it's kind of an opaque expression. It doesn't have much of an obvious link to today's everyday meanings of the words "beg" and "question". And of course, Aristotle didn't call it "begging the question" -- he called it something in Greek, which later got translated into Latin as "petitio principii", which in turn got translated into English as "begging the question".

"Begging the question" might be the translation that caught on, but is it really the best or clearest translation of "petitio principii" into English? It relies on slightly outdated or non-transparent meanings of "beg" and "question". In this case, "begging the question" means something like "asking to grant the very principle under debate".

There are other English translations of "petitio principii" we could be using, such as "assuming the conclusion" or "circular reasoning". I can't get too upset when people say "begs the question" to mean "raises the question" instead of the historical meaning, because in my opinion, the only thing the historical meaning has on its side is history. I don't think "begs the question" is a particularly clear translation of "petitio principii" into today's English.

What I particularly dislike is that the traditional meaning is one that can't effectively be expressed any other way. Question-begging is a form of circular reasoning but not all circular reasoning is question-begging. It's also a very useful term of art (even if it somewhat awkwardly translated), because question-begging is common and yet virtually invisible to the ones engaging in it. There are dozens of other ways to express the idea that something raises or prompts a question, so no great need to co-opt an this particular idiom. It's like borrowing a sterilized scalpel to spread peanut butter; it does the job, but if you need it to do its intended job, it's no longer available.

[Magna]

When I have my own grocery store, the express signs will say "No more than 10 items".

It's only useful if you allow enforcement.

If you aren't going to enforce them -- Walmart -- then why bother even having them?

In order to punish the considerate.

[Vanya]

When I have my own grocery store, the express signs will say "No more than 10 items".

It's only useful if you allow enforcement.

If you aren't going to enforce them -- Walmart -- then why bother even having them?

In order to punish the considerate. you for shopping at Wal-Mart.

[skullturf]

What I particularly dislike is that the traditional meaning is one that can't effectively be expressed any other way.

How about calling it "petitio principii"?

[Magna]

What I particularly dislike is that the traditional meaning is one that can't effectively be expressed any other way.

How about calling it "petitio principii"?

Because I speak English, as do the people I'm addressing. I'm not even sure how many educated people know what that phrase means. I'll use a loanword (loan-phrase?) if I have to or if there's some advantage to doing so, but in general not.

[skullturf]

What I particularly dislike is that the traditional meaning is one that can't effectively be expressed any other way.

How about calling it "petitio principii"?

Because I speak English, as do the people I'm addressing. I'm not even sure how many educated people know what that phrase means. I'll use a loanword (loan-phrase?) if I have to or if there's some advantage to doing so, but in general not.

Fair enough, but because the historical meaning of "begs the question" isn't obvious from the contemporary meanings of the words "beg" and "question", this means that using "begs the question" in its historical sense isn't really all that different from using a foreign loanword. People need to be exposed to that expression before they understand it -- they can't just "work out" what it means from knowing the words "beg" and "question".

I don't object to the historical meaning of "begs the question", but I also don't think it's something super valuable that we need to work to preserve. I think something like "assumes the conclusion" does the job perfectly fine. Although it might be a couple of syllables longer, it's more transparent or self-explanatory.

[Magna]

I think something like "assumes the conclusion" does the job perfectly fine. Although it might be a couple of syllables longer, it's more transparent or self-explanatory.

If there were a good phrase to use in its stead, I think I would. I'm not very happy with "assumes the conclusion" and I've not heard any other phrase that works very well. If it were up to me, I'd include it among common vocabulary taught in schools. Although the new usage has become fairly common, it's so easy to dispense with that I don't think it has become entrenched.

[skullturf]

There was a Language Log post about this once. It's long, but some people may find it interesting.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2290

One of the comments there suggested "sneaks the conclusion", and linked to a Google search on that expression:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=% ... =&gs_rfai=

Admittedly, probably none of the options ("assumes the conclusion", "sneaks the conclusion", "assumes what we're trying to prove", etc.) are perfect, and our preference for one or the other is largely aesthetic, as so many of these types of disagreements are.

But I think "begs the question" remains imperfect too, because although it's just four syllables and has a history of being used by scholars, it's also an expression that (1) is not intrinsically clear, but (2) consists of very common words. So of course people try to "work out" what they think it might mean by using their everyday knowledge of the words "beg" and "question".

[Lefty]

OK, I'll add when people say "jive" when they mean "jibe."

Or when they write "jibe" when they mean "gibe".

Oops. Well, at least I can say it correctly.

Another one that gets me is people who use "oogle" rather than "ogle." Where the heck did this word oogle come from?

I wasn't trying to correct, "jibe" is a fine word, and it was clearly the one you meant. But many people do write "jibe" when they actually mean "gibe" (disparage).

Funny, I've never heard "oogle" but I do often hear "oggle".

Unrelatedly, the weirdest misuse that I frequently encounter is "phenomenon" for the plural form and "phenomena" for the singular. Htf does that even happen?

[Onairb]

It was the Muppets who reminded us that 'phenomena' is a word meaning 'more than one phenomenon'; they spelled it out in the lyrics:
PHE-NO-ME-NA!
TWO-TWOOOOO-TWO-TWO-TWO...