2022-03-12
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน - Set – E - exponential
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Dictionary.com:
ออกเสียง exponential = “ek-spoh-NEN-shuhl”
Common Errors in English Usage Dictionary:
exponential
Something grows exponentially
when it repeatedly grows by multiples of some factor
in a rapidly accelerating fashion.
Don’t use the word loosely to refer to ordinary rapid,
but steady, growth.
See also “orders of magnitude.”
Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Usage Notes
Can 'Exponential' Mean 'Lots'?
(AKA 'How to Disappoint Your Math Teacher')
The reasons people have for getting itchy and upset
over a word changing meaning are many and varied.
For some, umbrage accompanies any form of semantic drift,
while others choose to complain only
when they fear that some specific word
is in danger of losing its specificity.
Specialists in technical fields
seem to be particularly fond of inveighing
against a word taking a new meaning;
a recent trend we have observed is the mathematically inclined
arguing against the broadened use of exponential.
An exponent is “a symbol written above and to the right of a mathematical expression
to indicate the operation of raising to a power,”
and the mathematical senses of exponential
include “of or relating to an exponent”
and “involving a variable in an exponent.”
These senses are appropriately mathy,
and if the word had simply stopped there all would be well in the world.
But exponential also took on the meaning
“expressible or approximately expressible by an exponential function;
especially :
characterized by or being an extremely rapid increase
(as in size or extent).
” It’s this ‘approximately expressible’ sense,
especially the part that comes
after the word especially in the above definition,
that irks those aficionados of specificity,
who very much desire that
exponential not end up simply functioning as a synonym of lots.
Given that we, and several other lexicographic concerns,
define exponential in this "not what your math teacher means" way,
it seems worth asking: why do lexicographers hate math?
We don’t, but even if we did,
that wouldn’t be why we define exponential like this.
We define words the way that they are used,
and it is important to acknowledge that it is we who
follow the lead of speakers of our language,
and not the other way around.
By the time we get around to entering and defining words
it is because they have already arrived,
not because we want to introduce them.
Lexicographers do not give a seal of approval,
they merely catalogue what has already been approved of
by the people who use the language.
We do not think you need to worry
that the new-fangled sense of exponential
will blunt the precision of the strict mathematical sense.
There are plenty of words in English
which hold a precise application in one field,
and a broader range of meanings in general use.
As a means of demonstrating this,
we have here a short quiz, with three common terms from math:
calculus, angle, and multiply.
See if you can distinguish between the math-related sense
and the general use in each of the following pairs of citations.
Perhaps the mathematicians will now ask
‘how would you feel if people started using the word dictionary
to mean anything other than “a reference source in print
or electronic form containing words usually alphabetically arranged
along with information about their forms,
pronunciations, functions, etymologies,
meanings, and syntactic and idiomatic uses”?
What if people started using lexicographer
with the meaning of “killjoy”?’
We can tell you the answer to at least one of these questions,
as people have been using dictionary in an extended sense
for some while, and so we provide a number of definitions for the word.
In addition to describing the alphabetized list of words,
a dictionary may also refer to
“a general comprehensive list, collection, or repository,”
“a list (as of data items or words) stored in a computer for reference
(as for information retrieval or word processing),”
and several other things besides.
And if you can convince enough people to use
the word lexicographer as a synonym for killjoy,
rest assured we will add that as a definition.
Furthermore, we will do so without complaining
that some sacrosanct specificity of language has been lost.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language:
ex·po·nen·tial (ĕk′spə-nĕn′shəl)
Relating to a mathematical expression
containing one or more exponents.
♦ Something is said to increase exponentially
if its rate of change must be expressed using exponents.
A graph of such a rate would appear
not as a line, but as a curve that becomes steeper or shallower.
