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Sure you can be prescriptive and deny the real world english speakers using a word and being understood. That's why I made the literally reference. Words change

Sure you can be prescriptive and deny the real world english speakers using a word and being understood. That's why I made the literally reference. Words change and gain meanings over time. This use is very common. To call it a misuse seems too far to me. The context of uses is almost always entirely disjoint as well. Compare: Covid cases are growing exponentially, we need to do something. (covid spreads in proportion to number of infected) Twitter is growing exponentially, I must invest! (network effects are causing something to accelerate, but obviously users don't create new users, nor do tweets create tweets) My love for you grows exponentially day by day, let's get married! (basic intensifier) I would guess these sentences are in descending order of acceptability for you.

sfink 4y ago
Heh. I suspect we could argue this all day, partly because there is very little we're actually disagreeing on, and I suspect much that we do agree on (or at least, I find your arguments well-stated and have upvoted accordingly, and mostly agree with them.) As I said in my original post, I doubt there's a way of halting the shift in meaning in real-world usage. I just find that it impoverishes the word and degrades the ability to express something that is worth expressing. I don't, in fact, have any problem with any of your three examples. The Twitter one is the most problematic, but it still works because I disagree with "users don't create new users"—they kind of do: if 10% of users convince one friend to join, then you have exponential growth. If size were proportional to the network effects, which are quadratic, then the statement would bother me. And it might be, for all I know, but given that (1) there's a decent argument for it being exponential and (2) it's not like there's that big of a difference between a quadratic curve and an exponential curve bounded at the very least by the world population, well... I guess I'm not that pedantic! As for the 3rd sentence, what kind of jerk would I be to reject such a warm and honest expression of your love? ;-) More seriously, once something is figurative then keeping the original meaning of exponential enhances the declaration—there's a subtle implication that love produces love. I've gotta stop replying to this thread, though!

sfink 4y ago

Heh. I suspect we could argue this all day, partly because there is very little we're actually disagreeing on, and I suspect much that we do agree on (or at least, I find your arguments well-stated and have upvoted accordingly, and mostly agree with them.) As I said in my original post, I doubt there's a way of halting the shift in meaning in real-world usage. I just find that it impoverishes the word and degrades the ability to express something that is worth expressing. I don't, in fact, have any problem with any of your three examples. The Twitter one is the most problematic, but it still works because I disagree with "users don't create new users"—they kind of do: if 10% of users convince one friend to join, then you have exponential growth. If size were proportional to the network effects, which are quadratic, then the statement would bother me. And it might be, for all I know, but given that (1) there's a decent argument for it being exponential and (2) it's not like there's that big of a difference between a quadratic curve and an exponential curve bounded at the very least by the world population, well... I guess I'm not that pedantic! As for the 3rd sentence, what kind of jerk would I be to reject such a warm and honest expression of your love? ;-) More seriously, once something is figurative then keeping the original meaning of exponential enhances the declaration—there's a subtle implication that love produces love. I've gotta stop replying to this thread, though!