Pedants do have a tendency to get steamed up about some curious things.
I suspect that he had all of a sudden beaten out of him by a teacher in his youth and now, having learnt his lesson, he is determined that everyone else will eschew all of a sudden and say suddenly instead. Perce is not impressed. However, I digress. On the subject of begging the question I turned to Michael Quinion's World Wide Words website for guidance, because coincidentally Michael has just posted a ruling on this issue. Now here, I confess, I am out of my depth and am merely retailing, for the record, Quinion's advice on the matter.