This is very un-orgish but it seems to do it. (forward-word) goes to the
end the next recognized word, (backward-word) to the beginning of the
word you are now at the end of, and (backward-char) to get to a
space. You just need org to get you on the list ;)

It seems to work on these.

- foo :: bar    (goto-char (org-element-property :contents-begin (org-element-at-point)))
-     baz :: goo
- 1 egg
- 0.5 cups
- :punc

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
(defun gg ()
 (interactive)
 (beginning-of-line)
 (forward-word)
 (backward-word)
 (while (not (looking-at " "))
   (backward-char)))
#+END_SRC

Calvin Young writes:

> Hi all,
>
> If my cursor is in a description list item, what's the recommended way of
> getting the point at the beginning of the description list text (i.e.,
> after the bullet character)? To illustrate, given the following description
> list item, I'd like to get the point represented by the pipe character "|":
>
> - |foo :: bar
>
> If I use something like `(org-element-property :contents-begin
> (org-element-at-point))`, that gives me the point at the beginning of the
> description, not the list item:
>
> - foo :: |bar
>
> How do I need to massage this to give me the beginning of the whole list
> item? Is there a recommended solution that'd work for both description
> lists *and* plain lists?
>
> Thanks everyone :)
>
> Calvin

--
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu