Look guys, my last email (below) was a joke. I'm just bored with top and bottom stuff. Can we can it? Mike I wrote:
Who cares about top or bottom?
Begging the question is the real problem. It does not mean "invite the question". Begging the question is a fool's debating trick. Like lifting yourself by your bootstraps. Note - I didn't say bootstrapping - which as we all know is now a perfectly valid conventional use of that term in our context.
BTQ is relying logically on something which still needs to be proved (or successfully argued in a debate).
This list urgently needs a convention on BTQ. Do you want it to mean ...
1 implying or inviting an unasked question
2 relying on an unproven argument to prove that argument
My vote would be for the latter meaning because we are all computer people and we ought to be rigorously logical.
Mike
Jim