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Comment by davi | Hacker News Reader

Two paragraphs lead off with the "Now, <statement>" construct:

"Now, our funding situation is that..."

"Now, we understand that..."

I'm starting to get sensitized to this construct. The 'now' is like an 'um' -- i.e., filler -- except, it's an 'um' that says, "I am about to say something authoritatively."

Obama uses it a lot, too.

I'm starting to flag it as sort of poser-ish.

The content of the article was super high quality, and outweighed this nit.

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Obama uses it when speaking without a script, right? In that circumstance it's a kind of time-filler while he arranges his next sentence in his head -- he often uses a long, drawn-out 'Aaaaand' in the same way. At least it's better than 'uh,' which is what most people (including me) use.

But in written English it serves no purpose.

It serves the purpose of imparting a conversational style with minimal effort.

That's right. Now, that being said, it begs the question of whether or not the style imparted is any good.

If you're going to focus on style, you should use "prompts the question" or "raises the question."

http://begthequestion.info/

"Prompts" sounds stilted, "raises" is an extra syllable.

I agree that "prompts" sounds stilted, but are you seriously advocating using something that's incorrect -- "begs" -- instead of "raises" just because it's slightly shorter?

Yep. "Begs" isn't incorrect anymore. Your pointless battle was lost before you ever started caring.

Yes, "begs the question" is misused all the time.

"Now, that being said, it begs the question of <whatever>" -- the sentence was tongue-in-cheek. I was illustrating, in a mocking way, the style I don't like.

Sorry for the troll.

Now I see. I totally missed that...

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