Direction of Fedora desktop manager Gnome, related to complaints in OT morons thread

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Monday 21 March 2011 21:19:16 Vaclav Mocek wrote:
> On 03/21/2011 06:19 PM, Joe Zeff wrote:
> > On 03/21/2011 10:16 AM, stan wrote:
> >> And it
> >> begs the question of*why*  people might be deserting Fedora.
> > 
> > No it doesn't; it *ASKS* the question.  "Begging the question" is a
> > logical fallacy.  Please stop using that term like an illiterate moron,
> > even if it is common usage.  Just because the common herd uses it
> > doesn't make it right and to those of us who know what it means it makes
> > you sound like an ID10T.
> 
>  From my Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (2008):
> 
> Idiom "beg the question"
> 
> 1. to make somebody want to ask a question that has not yet been answered
>      "All of which begs the question as to who will fund the project."
> 
> 2. to talk about something as if it were definitely true, even though it
> might not be
>      "These assumptions beg the question that children learn languages
> more easily than adults."
> 
> 
> I am confused; it is an idiom, which is a part of Standard [British]
> English and the previous usage seems to be correct.

No need to be confused :-) . The idiom is (as you found out) completely ok and 
Stan used it properly.

It's just that Joe Zeff apparently has a bad day today. ;-) Or maybe he has 
something personal against Stan and uses a public list to pass on a couple of 
personal insults. Or maybe he considers all people who use British English a 
common herd of illiterate morons who sound like ID10Ts to people who prefer 
some non-British dialect of English. Or maybe something else... ;-)

Simply put, this situation basically begs the question why Joe Zeff has a 
problem with the usage of "beg the question". ;-) But all this is getting too 
OT...

:-)
Marko