On 20 Apr, 09:21, Antoon Pardon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Indeed I have no wish to bow before common usage.
Then nobody will understand you properly if you start referring to a "steep learning curve" when in their terminology you actually mean a "shallow learning curve". Certainly, this discussion has alerted me to a level of ambiguity with the term that would dissuade me from using it, but then it's a hand-waving kind of term, anyway, which would be better replaced with a proper description of whatever effect is supposed to be observable. It seems to me that the original term isn't directly applicable to most situations where it is applied in general usage. For example, someone talking about the learning curve involved in riding a bicycle is taking a term originally used to describe effects observed when people carry out the same task repeatedly and applying it to an activity which involves a number of different cooperating tasks or processes. > I prefer to think about things and dare to speak out when they don't seem to > make sense. > > Just repeating common usage propagates a lot of nonsense. Languages and their constituent parts change over time. Here's a relevant article on the topic: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/face58f687589a6c Paul -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
