| > but when an incorrect usage is eliminating a useful concept with no ready replacement The transitive form "begs the question X", where X is som actual question) and intransitive ("begs the question", with no specified question, referring to the petition principii fallacy, from which, by poor translation from Latin, the English idiom is derived) forms are distinct forms; the one doesn't replace the other. Better, the older, intransitive form can be viewed as having a clear relation to the newer, transitive form where the question "begged" is the one that was at issue and which the claim was offered to resolve, which -- given that the newer, transitive form, follows closer with the definitions of the individual words, especially in modern English -- actually provides a link between the older idiom and the rest of the language. (This can be viewed in reverse: the newer form serves as a generalization of the older form.) > the older sense deserves the right to at least go down fighting. Its a pointless fight when the two users are complementary and structurally distinct, as here, rather than opposed. > but I hold out an unreasonable hope that "literally" might survive its struggle. Complaining about the figurative use of "literally" as a figurative intensifier (where it means "almost as if literally") is pointless. Complaining about the various dictionaries that misreport this use and assert incorrectly that it is used to mean "figuratively", instead of being used figuratively itself may be more pointful (but, by this point, perhaps still somewhat quixotic.) |