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Sam Altman is full of shit (and totally has a thing for Scarlett Johansson)
(www.wheresyoured.at)
Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.
For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community
Hi, I'm going to be that OTHER guy:
Thank god not all dictionaries are prescriptivists and simply reflect the natural usage: Cambridge dictionary: Beg the question
On a side rant "begging the question" is a terrible name for this bias, and the very wikipedia page you've been so kind to offer provides the much more transparent "assuming the conclusion".
If you absolutely wanted to translate from the original latin/greek (petitio principii/τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ αἰτεῖσθαι): "beginning with an ask", where ask = assumption of the premise. [Which happens to also be more transparent]
Just because we've inherited terrible translations does not mean we should seek to perpetuate them though sheer cultural inertia, and much less chastise others when using the much more natural meaning of the words "beg the question". [I have to wonder if begging here is somehow a corruption of "begin" but I can't find sources to back this up, and don't want to waste too much time looking]
I feel mildly better, thanks.
If natively fluent speakers of the English language use beg the question in the "wrong" way time and time again, finding the "incorrect" meaning a natural fit with their understanding of the verb to beg, then the "incorrect" meaning may well be the one we should roll with.
Pedants being wrong on the Internet is exactly why I have an OED subscription. :) "Beg the question" in the sense of "to assume without proof" doesn't have a supporting quote newer than 1870, which suggests to me that... yeah, it can be considered obsolete.
Merriam-Webster also has a good page explaining the expression, and the predominance of the natural meaning: https://web.archive.org/web/20240522073251/https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/beg-the-question
Well put M-W staff writer, well put.