I propose we 'bag' the question instead

On the controversy surrounding the use of the expression, “begging the question.” Very few people realize they use it wrong, but everybody seems to – that is except for a few pedantic philosophers and academics. Ever since a prof pointed out to me the correct usage, I’ve been noticing it every time I see or hear it. I’ve concluded that the entire literary establishment – and by literary establishment I mean the popular press – uses it to mean something along the lines of, “Our discussion has brought us to a point where we’ll have to ask this other question.” For example any discussion about winning the Iraq war begs the question, “Is the Iraq war winnable?” The correct usage implies a logical fallacy along the lines of, “The premises of the argument already posit its conclusion.” For example if we were still discussing the war in Iraq, “There’s only one way to win the war in Iraq and that’s by force. We could try some more diplomacy, and even talk more with the troops. We’ll even talk to Iran, but we’re going to have to deploy more troops.” The first premise that force is necessary presupposes the conclusion that we’ll have to send in more troops.

Since I’m hardly a purist I kind of like both usages. In fact, I often find myself tempted to make the wrong usage. I mean, there needs to be an expression for this activity – “raising the question,” is so passé. I think from now on I‘m just going to use both whenever I like. But what if I were to distinguish the two by changing the root word in beg. “Bag” looks and sounds just about the same, only it is just different enough to be distinguishable. The only problem is then deciding which gets to maintain the word beg, and which has to change. The latter usage seems the most like bagging the question to me. The argument actually seems to contain the conclusion … as though it were enclosed within … or bagged. Now if I could only get the rest of the world to agree with me on this…