I read this sentence in a story recently:
The churches say they have no money for upkeep, and the world-renowned hospital says it has no need for churches. Which begs the question: what happens to architectural gems that no one can afford to maintain?
I don’t even understand why writers started using “begs the question” at all. It doesn’t even make sense in the way they want us to read it. But even if we could discern that they mean “raises the question” or “prompts the question” or even “dodges the question,” the phrase “begs the question” has a particular and very limited meaning.
As usage experts and editors have taught repeatedly and for years, to beg the question is a logical fallacy in which the question being debated is used as an argument. So if you are a lawyer arguing your case before a judge and jury and you say, “My client couldn’t have stolen that cow because he is an honest man,” you are begging the question. Your client’s honesty is precisely what is being debated in the courtroom.
Copy editors, I implore you, every time you see this phrase, raise the question about whether the writer understands what it means. It may become acceptable to use “begs the question” to mean dodges or evades the issue, but it still doesn’t mean to raise or cause us to ask a question.
Here is a Language Log post about “begging the question” and here is another one. Here is Paul Brians on “begs the question.”