I don't understand the distinction. We can replace the word "begs" with "raises" in your example and it still makes sense: ""So now that you stopped beating your wife, how is your marriage?" That RAISES the question of if you ever beat your wife at all." Why is "begs the question" acceptable in your sentence, but not in element-o-p's?

Is "very first" more first (firster?) than plain old "first"?

If somebody beats me to first post, could I trump them with a very first post?

If you're going to be using AutoCAD quite regularly, then I would strongly recommend learning the CLI. If you already know the name of the command you want in menus / toolbars / ribbon, it will probably take less than a day to learn the command line equivalents. You probably only use about a dozen commands on a regular basis and you can use command aliases for these. Each alias is usually only one or two characters - Line = L, PolyLine = PL, Circle = C, Move = M, Rotate = RO, Copy = CO (I think these are the defaults; I customised my aliases years ago and can't quite remember the defaults now). Once you've entered the command, the CLI shows you all available options - just enter the capitalised letter and you're away!

Programs that I use constantly are pinned because when they are open they appear as a large icon in the taskbar anyway. Programs that I use occasionally are in Quickstart, with small icons. Everything else is in the start menu.

Surely all systems of measurement are standard? They wouldn't be much use if they weren't standardized!

By law, Britain is a metric country, though I think that the pint and the mile are also legal. In practice, we are a hodge-podge of metric and Imperial. In my job I use metric exclusively, but I'll tell people that I'm 5'9" and weigh 11 stone (Brits weigh themselves in stones, rather than pounds). We buy petrol (gasoline) in litres, but measure fuel consumption in miles per gallon. We buy cola in litres, but beer in pints.

40/40 vision is the same as 20/20 vision. 20/20 vision is considered to be "normal"; 20/40 is half as good as 20/20, while 20/10 is twice as good. The numerator refers to the distance of the observer from the chart in feet. The denominator is more complicated, but essentially refers to the distance between lines on the chart (according to Wikipedia this is measured in mm, which I find odd given that the numerator is measured in feet).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_acuity (Wikipedia.com)

I think I may be the complete opposite of you. I don't / won't / can't sing. The only time I've tried since my music teacher told me to stop at age 13 was in my car, in the dark, on an empty road; I started to feel physically nauseous after a minute or two. Because I don't sing, I generally don't even notice the words. I do enjoy listening to music, but I know next to nothing about music* and so I don't feel compelled to listen closely - to me, music is just pleasant sounds

* I'm actually uncertain what a melody is! I've been trying to figure out how to explain what I think it is, but just don't really understand the terminology to be able to do so: is the melody not the beat, not the singing, but rather the "catchy" musical part of the song?

Hey! Dice brought a new word into existence - he created something where once there was nothing. If the act of creation isn't worth a +3 (+5 now), I don't know what is.

The UK isn't "in the middle of the North Sea", it's next to the North Sea. Heck, the UK isn't in the middle of anything.

The Queen does have the right to vote, she just chooses not to.

"Although the law relating to elections does not specifically prohibit the Sovereign from voting in a general election or local election, it is considered unconstitutional for the Sovereign and his or her heir to do so."
http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/QueenandGovernment/Queenandvoting.aspx (The Official Website of the British Monarchy)