Narrator: LOGICAL FALLACY COMICS today's fallacy: BEGGING THE QUESTION
T-Rex: Begging the question is when what you're trying to prove is assumed implicitly in one of your premises!
T-Rex: FOR EXAMPLE: T-Rex is a pretty sweet dude because he's always so friggin' awesome!
T-Rex: This is actually formally valid: if the premise is true and I'm friggin' awesome, then it follows that I'm a pretty sweet dude. However, I've provided no logical support for my "T-Rex is awesome" premise, but only made a conclusion (T-Rex = pretty sweet) which relies on the premise being true. I haven't offered any evidence, so I am begging the question!
Utahraptor: But "begging the question" is mostly used today to mean "raising the question"!
T-Rex: I know! IT'S SO WRONG.
Utahraptor: Well, I suppose that begs the question, T-Rex: if it's used more often to mean "raises the question" than "a fallacy of presumption", doesn't that suggest that the definition of the phrase has evolved?
T-Rex: NO IT DOES NOT. What it suggests is that everybody sucks but me!
Narrator: LATER: THE FACE OF PRESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE??
