Mark Liberman gives advice on begging the question, an expression almost always used 'wrongly'

Should we join the herd and use "beg the question" to mean "raise the question"? Or should we join the few, proud hold-outs who still use it in the old "assume the conclusion" sense, while complaining about the ignorant rabble who etc.?

In my opinion, those are both bad choices. If you use the phrase to mean "raise the question", some pedants will silently dismiss you as a dunce, while others will complain loudly, thus distracting everyone else from whatever you wanted to say. If you complain about others' "misuse", you come across as an annoying pedant. And if you use the phrase to mean "assume the conclusion", almost no one will understand you.

My recommendation: Never use the phrase yourself — use "assume the conclusion" or "raise the question", depending on what you mean — and cultivate an attitude of serene detachment in the face of its use by others.

Mr Liberman's full note on this point is here. 

I read it two or three times over the years when, as just happened, somebody 'misuses' the phrase, to remind myself what the row is about. That might mean I am a pedant, which I am, but one who dislikes the sort of (false) pedantry that objects to, for example, England being used when United Kingdom is meant or 'his' to mean 'his or her'.

Serene detachment is a good policy when it comes to grammatical errors and towards people who hold political views you strongly dislike.

I am not setene, however, about using decimate to mean reduce to one tenth (it means reduce by one tenth). I dislike split infinitives and very, very much dislike 'presently' used to mean 'at present'. 

Yet these solecisms also have a very long pedigree. 

I suppose I need to be Zen.

One thing I shall not be serene about. Conduit has two syllables and rhymes with pundit.