The Barbarians Aren't Just At The Gates...:

They're inside the walls and, boorish oafs that they are, they didn't wipe their feet, and they've left the gate open behind them.

Welcome to another installment of The Language Guy, Who Learn's You About Punctuation, Well Talking, Writing And Speling  And Other Useful Stuff With Words.  This week's topic is the misuse of the phrase "Begs the question."  Technically and in formal argument, as all of you former Debate Club nerds and nerdettes know, "begging the question" is a logical fallacy, an argument whose conclusion is simply a re-statement of its premise, i.e.  "I think he's unattractive because he's ugly" or "Her political beliefs are stupid because she's a Republican"--okay, maybe we could argue that second one.  What we cannot argue, though, is that "Beg the question" and "Raise the question" are synonymous:  they are not, or at least didn't use to be, and are not supposed to be.

The New Yorker, one of the last bastions of civility, culture, correctness and certitude--although they do use "fuck" a lot--recently fell victim to this insidious trap, even though they are notorious for their fact-checking and editorial staffs.  Jay McInerney's first novel Bright Lights, Big City was a thinly-veiled depiction of life as a fact-checker at TNYer.  In the movie version, the main character was played by a pre-Parkinsons Michael J. Fox; if you read the novel, it was likely the first one you'd read written entirely in the Second Person, and you're still unsure whether you like that style or not and how it affects the way you see the world (you see what I did there, right?); I mean, do you really want someone else, someone you may not even know, speaking for you?

Well, in the October 27 edition of TNYer,  in the "The Talk Of The Town" section, Jelani Cobb writes "The fact that underrepresented groups can vote, and do so in substantial numbers...begs a question:  Why aren't there more such candidates?"  Clearly, what Mr. or Ms. Cobb (don't you just hate gender-unclear names?) means is that the situation raises the question, not that it attempts to answer it in its formulation, or attempts to dodge it.  If The New Yorker lets that go, acknowledges, de-facto, that that construction is acceptable, then where are we?  I can feel the very earth shifting beneath my feet.

Then, on Friday night, the nasty mis-appropriated phrase reared its ugly head (or headed its ugly rear) again.  I went to see Mavis Staples (OH. MY. GOD.--what an incredible show!!!) in Bellows Falls, VT (who'd'a thunk?), and the nice fella who introduced her, after plugging whatever organization he represented that put on the show, said something like "But that begs the question of how you do introduce someone like Mavis Staples...."  Alice, knowing how irked I am by that usage, leaned forward, past our son, Jake, who came up from Harvard just to see Mavis (and, at 26, was one of the youngest members of the audience), to see how I was reacting  to that major breach in usage, that assault on the very barricades of civilization.  I shrugged and filed it away for this week's post.

Do I really give a damn about this stuff?  In the grand scheme of things, it's pretty insignificant, isn't it?  Einstein split the atom, Gene Roddenberry split the infinitive ("...to boldly go where no man has gone before.") and the world is still here.  Of course language is the currency of politicians (unless currency is their currency: that'll never be out of fashion), advertisers and other shysters trying to de-sensitize us to the importance of words and of how they can be corrupted for nefarious purposes.  What sounds better to you: Pro-Choice or Pro-Abortion?  Pro-Life or Anti-Abortion?  Bitchy or Assertive?  The words, they color our views and even shape our opinions, mon ami.  I believe it was The Bard, or Yogi Berra, maybe, who said "Eschew Obfuscation."

Perhaps, though, I give too much credit.  A couple of days after the midterm, when the Barbarians did storm the gates and gain admission, again, I heard a quote from John Boehner (Motto: "Skin cancer?  Hah--lung cancer'll get me long before that does!") wherein he said "If Obama acts unilaterally, by himself...."  Doh!

For the show, the songs remain the same, from last week (that's just a sneaky way to make you go back to read last week's post).  I like 'em, wanna play 'em,  and, after all, the subject's still valid, maybe more so, after the election.  And I don't think that begs any questions.