the whining diner and wellfedfred: begging the question

I can forgive sentence fragments if used to hint that the rest of the sentence is unprintable or that the logical conclusion of the thought is unspeakable. My pet peeve - well, the list of my pet peeves is long enough to be a peeve menagerie. Today I'm irked by the misuse of a common English expression. I copied this right out of my Inbox, which is why it's a little blurry. I meant to apologize, but, on second thought, blurry strikes me as appropriate.

Oh, dear. To beg the question does NOT mean to raise the question.

A few brave souls maintain a Web site dedicated to stamping out this abuse of the term. I direct your attention to www.begthequestion.info.

Here, taken from begthequestion.info, is a definition of the term:

"Begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place.

The site also tells us what "begging the question" doesn't mean, which for most of us ordinary mortals is probably a bit more helpful than the above definition. Examples are provided.

Finally, the site provides cards that explain the correct meaning, which you may print out and hand to strangers if you hear them misusing the expression. These people are serious!