Pet Peeve Alert

One of my biggest pet peeves is misusing the term "begging the question." To beg the question means to assume the thing you are trying to prove. To use Wikipedia's example, when arguing that the Bible is the word of God, a person would refer to what is written in the Bible as proof of the proposition that the Bible is divinely inspired.

Begging the question does not mean to "present" the question. I was reading this post on MyDD.com discussing the Lieberman-Graham amendment to the war supplemental that would forbid the dissemination of pictures of American torture. Charles Lemus writes: "this begs the question, what are they trying to hide?" No, it presents that question, or poses that question. The question was not "begged."

(I had a pedant for a philosophy professor during my undergrad years at Pitt. Sue me.)

And another thing: "whether or not X" makes my ears bleed. It should be "whether X or not," or "regardless of whether X".

"Whether or not" is redundant, and it drives me absolutely craaaaazy.

Ok, that's probably enough.