I have noticed lately that the question mark is having a difficult time asserting itself. In an email to a client recently, a student wrote I have collected the information you requested. Would you be able to meet this Thursday afternoon. His second sentence here is directly asking a simple question, so shouldn’t it conclude …
Author Archives: rultimo
Begging for More
In an earlier post (Begging for Change), I took up the question of begging the question, a phrase that has come to mean, as I explained there, something more than it did in the beginning. I received some comments asking me to give more examples of the original meaning, and I thought a few additional …
Begging for Change
It is not uncommon to hear someone say something like this: Well, if what you say is true, that only begs the question: Should we continue to allow houses to be built so close to the shoreline? The phrase begs the question has lately extended (some would say overreached) its established borders to now mean …
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All or Nothing
One way you know you’re on soft ground in an argument is to hear something like His supporters are all nuts, or Her policies won’t help anyone. In conversations that are trying honestly to get somewhere, to test one’s opinions against the thoughts of others, generalities like these are as dangerous as a riptide that …