so, to beg the question is, likely, to corrupt an old phrase.

but tonight I heard a sports guy say, "the question.. begs asking" (2100 ghits). is this an improvement, linguistically speaking?

I suppose it might be an improvement, linguistically speaking, if the peevologists don't pule and micturate about it. I wouldn't be competent to predict that. It seems to me that def. 2 in the AHD definition of beg fits this usage pretty well, however def. 3a seems to fit the peevebane usage. But then I think water is wet, so who am I to judge?

yeah, it seems to get closer to the way that people use the phrase thesedays.

tsu, back when I was a prescriptivist I was especially appalled at the "new" mening of "begging a question"

Your question about "begs asking" begs asking, what's the term for a corruption of a corruption

Well, if it corrupts the corruption by bringing it back to the original uncorrupt state, then it would be called 'correction' or 'purification'. But if it corrupts it further or in another direction, then... it would be called politics.

I kind of like it, although I'm unemcumbered by contextual details. I guess getting liked helps a word usage or a phrase usage make it.

The site spell checker redlined unemcumbered and threw me into doubt.

So it should have. You've done a typo - it's uneNcumbered isn't it?

You're mighty right. It's funny how I unwittingly substitute certain characters. I wish I had an application to show me neural tracks.

It is, indeed, unencumbered.

When “unencumbered by the thought process”, or barely encumbered by it, my spelling and factual recall are often better. Is there a name for the phenomenon of the first guess's greater probability of being correct?

Dunno about a name, but I just sent the free rice link (thanks, Steffani) to some friends, and told them to trust their instincts: what your first thought is is often correct, there.

And, besides being so similar in shape, the m and n keys are right next to each other! However, that does not explain my tendency to type extrememly.