Curious Omission In New-Style Formats

Antoon Pardon antoon.pardon at rece.vub.ac.be
Fri Jul 15 03:54:25 EDT 2016


Op 15-07-16 om 08:06 schreef Marko Rauhamaa:
> Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly at gmail.com>:
>
>> On Jul 14, 2016 11:37 AM, "Marko Rauhamaa" <marko at pacujo.net> wrote:
>>> Where do you get the idea that the common usage is "wrong?" What do
>>> you use as a standard?
>> Is it "wrong" to consider some usages "wrong"? By what standard?
>>
>> I'm not interested in arguing over philosophy, so I won't.
> Common usage among educated speakers ordinarily is the yardstick for
> language questions.

But educated about what exactly?

Each time someone talks about "a steep learning curve" in order to indicate
something is difficult to master, he is using it wrong, because actual
steep learning curves indicate something can be mastered quickly.

Now I suspect most people who talk about steep learning curves are educated,
they just aren't educated about learning curves and so I think common
usage among educated speakers is inadequate as a yard stick.

-- 
Antoon Pardon




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