A person who is probably now dead drew this to my attention about 20 years ago. I moved a book on my desk and there was his ­comment. I thought I had better mention it, in case he is not dead.

More and more people use the expression to beg the question when they mean something else, perhaps raise the question or even evade answering it. This caused my good friend no end of anguish. “Can’t you put people right on this?” he asked.

The expression has been used since at least the time of Aristotle, so considering the changes that have been made to meanings of so many other words and phrases we could be a little surprised at the extent to which it has retained its original meaning.

“Begging the question” is arguing a point on a false premise, not “evading the question”, even though some dictionaries are starting to include this new interpretation.

John Kane, of the school of ­politics and public policy at Griffith University(he might be dead too, for all I know) drew attention a couple of years ago to a report in The Australian which included: “The downgrading of the NSW governor’s role ... begs the question: what will happen to our other state governors under a republic?” To him this was not begging the question. It was ­simply raising a question.

An example of something begging the question would be: From the Fowler book “fox hunting is not cruel, since the fox enjoys the fun”. This argument is based on a thought that can be disputed.

The expression comes from the Latin petitio principii, meaning “begging the principle”. Brewer’s  Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says the expression was first used by Aristotle, so obviously it is very old. Aristotle is dead, by the way.

Some dictionaries are now including the meanings of raising or avoiding the question, following the principle, criticised sometimes in these columns, that if enough people make the same mistake enough times that mistake might as well go in the dictionaries.

 Eventually it will not be a mistake. The Reader’s Digest Word Finder includes the definition of “evade, avoid, dodge, shirk, shun, escape, avert, eschew, parry, fend off, sidestep, steer clear of, shrug off, duck”.

Frank Devine in The Australian Magazine quoted John Kane as saying the Australian misuse of “begging the question” seemed to be irreversible.

The word beg, incidentally, seems to owe its origin to Lambert Begue, who in The Netherlands in the 12th century founded the Beguine Sisterhood, a lay Roman Catholic Order. Followers depended on alms for a living, leading to the expression begging for a living.

As for question, Lewis Thomas in his book Et Cetera Et Cetera says that before 1200 a question was “a philosophical or theological problem, nothing more or less”. He added that the Latin quaestionem and old French question referred to a legal investigation.

Incidentally, a few weeks ago I said somebody would list shirtfront of their word of the year. Oxford University Press has just announced shirtfront as its word of the year.

www.lauriebarber.com; 

lbarber@midcoast.com.au