Curious Omission In New-Style Formats

[Jussi Piitulainen]

Antoon Pardon writes:

> Op 15-07-16 om 08:06 schreef Marko Rauhamaa:
>>
>> 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.

I think I see your point, but I think it's also easy to think the axes
of the metaphor so that it makes sense:

c      ,
o     ,
s    ,
t . .
 l e a r n i n g

First two steps l-e plain sailing. Next two steps a-r steep climb. Cost
is the effort that makes the learner experience the learning as steep.
(Spending more *time* without ever paying much attention may not be the
best of ideas - it may be the worst of ideas - if the goal is to learn
but it still fits the graph: cost goes up for little or no gain.)

Perhaps more proper to call that a cost-to-learn curve or something?
But when it becomes unwieldy, it gets shortened to something shorter,
and here the more informative component has won. Maybe.