It's a rhetorical device like using "literal" even when something is meant in figurative terms. Specifically, it's hyperbole or exaggeration. It's one of the s

It's a rhetorical device like using "literal" even when something is meant in figurative terms. Specifically, it's hyperbole or exaggeration. It's one of the strengths of human language that we can infer meaning from context -- from connotation -- rather than purely relying on denotative meaning. By exaggerating factual reality of our statements, we imply the strength of our belief or emphasize the degree of the description we're making. Further, it's important to recognize that jargon does not supercede the vernacular meaning of a word. Just because you know what "exponential" is and how it differs from, say, "geometric" when referring to mathematics, this doesn't mean that the vernacular meanings of these words don't apply any longer. No, it doesn't matter that mathematics is the origin of the terms. There are still valid, accepted, vernacular meanings. Understanding jargon means you need to understand the context that the speaker is using to determine what meaning they're using. Here, since "exponential" in the mathematic sense is clearly nonsense, you should conclude that that meaning is not the intended literal meaning. Human communication is about conveying the overall meaning in spite of the meaning of individual words. Language is imprecise because thoughts, opinions, and arguments are more complex and nuanced than the individual words we're forced to express them in can ever be. After all, think of diversity of the range of devices that can accurately be described as a "computer". Or how many different types of objects you could describe as a "cup" or a "table". These are common nouns for real, physical objects, and their meaning is fuzzy enough to cover dissimilar objects made of dissimilar materials that serve dissimilar purposes. And yet if I say to you "I put the cup on the table" you have sufficient information to know what has happened even though you and I have never met in person, we've never shared a conversation, and you've never seen my cup or my table (and, indeed, the cup and table you're imagining in your head almost certainly look nothing like my actual cup and table). So, yeah, that isn't what "exponential" means, but that sentence is not meaningless because of it.