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Discussion Groups / English Usage / February 2010Candidate for worst English word: 'biweekly'
Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you generally can't decipher what is meant. By the time you explain what you meant, you've wasted more verbiage than you could have possibly saved by using 'biweekly'. Is there a process by which you can perma-ban words? Any other candidates for 'worst English word'? >Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you generally >can't decipher what is meant. By the time you explain what you meant, [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > >Any other candidates for 'worst English word'? Well, there's "bi-monthly" and "biannual"....  Signature************* DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@cox.net) ************* * Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow * * My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps * Hatunen filted: >>Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you generally >>can't decipher what is meant. By the time you explain what you meant, [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > >Well, there's "bi-monthly" and "biannual".... ObCrossThread: does "bilingual" mean "fluent in English as well as French" or "half-fluent in one language"?...r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? > Hatunen filted: >> [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > ObCrossThread: does "bilingual" mean "fluent in English as well as French" or > "half-fluent in one language"?...r That, at least, has an answer, because most people will be able to guess the meaning of "semi-lingual" and "semi-sentient". In fact, I'd guess that the majority of "bi-" words are unambiguous. The group that includes "biennial" and "biweekly" is an exception. SignaturePeter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org For an e-mail address, see my web page. > Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you > generally can't decipher what is meant. By the time you explain > what you meant, you've wasted more verbiage than you could have > possibly saved by using 'biweekly'. Fowler noticed this, and the general mess we have made of bi- with other time units, in the original OED. He recommended half-weekly and fortnightly; I would prefer twice-weekly for the first. > Is there a process by which you can perma-ban words? No. Signature--- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: If you are going thru hell, keep going. :|| >> Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you >> generally can't decipher what is meant. By the time you explain [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > other time units, in the original OED. He recommended half-weekly and > fortnightly; I would prefer twice-weekly for the first. But on which days does a twice weekly event occur? Incidentally, I think biennial still keeps its meaning as "every two years". "Fortnightly" would sound unusual to an American ear. SignatureJim Silverton Potomac, Maryland > But on which days does a twice weekly event occur? Incidentally, I think > biennial still keeps its meaning as "every two years". "Fortnightly" > would sound unusual to an American ear. Which is a real pity, because "fortnightly" is one of the few members of this group that remains totally unambiguous. "Biweekly" is clear enough to me, but I'll bet that there are some people who would interpret it as "twice a week". SignaturePeter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org For an e-mail address, see my web page. On Jan 26, 1:12 pm, "djarvi...@gmail.com" <djarvi...@gmail.com> wrote: > Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you generally > can't decipher what is meant. By the time you explain what you meant, [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Any other candidates for 'worst English word'? Inflammable - >On Jan 26, 1:12 pm, "djarvi...@gmail.com" <djarvi...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you generally [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > >Inflammable - "Sanction" has a tendency to bipolarity. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) BrE filted: >>On Jan 26, 1:12 pm, "djarvi...@gmail.com" <djarvi...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you generally [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > >"Sanction" has a tendency to bipolarity. Great piece of double-double-entendre in the movie "Class", when Rob Lowe offers advice to Andrew McCarthy on how to impress his father: "talk about sanctions; he's got a hard-on for sanctions"....r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? On Jan 26, 1:12 pm, "djarvi...@gmail.com" <djarvi...@gmail.com> wrote: > Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you generally > can't decipher what is meant. By the time you explain what you meant, [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Any other candidates for 'worst English word'? Inflammable - Refute - Literally - Fred filted: >On Jan 26, 1:12 pm, "djarvi...@gmail.com" <djarvi...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you generally [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > >Literally - Parameter - Quantum - Steep - (in connection with learning curves) ....r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? >Fred filted: >> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > >Steep - (in connection with learning curves) Actually (when at the beginning of a sentence) SignatureTony Cooper - Orlando, Florida > Fred filted: >> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > Steep - (in connection with learning curves) Momentarily - Both biweekly and fortnightly sound acceptable. Personally I prefer fortnightly though. > Both biweekly and fortnightly sound acceptable. Personally I prefer > fortnightly though. biweekly also bi-weekly, 1865, from bi- + weekly (see week). The sense "twice a week" is the first attested, but that of "every two weeks" is equally implied. fortnight 17c. contraction of M.E. fourteniht, from O.E. feowertyne niht, lit. "fourteen nights," preserving the ancient Gmc. custom of reckoning by nights, mentioned by Tacitus in "Germania" xi. I agree. It seems to have been an accepted term for several centuries whereas the bi form has been ambiguous ever since its relatively newer coining. >> Both biweekly and fortnightly sound acceptable. Personally I prefer >> fortnightly though. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >"fourteen nights," preserving the ancient Gmc. custom of reckoning by >nights, mentioned by Tacitus in "Germania" xi. I've seen people, mainly bloggers, reckoning in "sleeps". SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk Steve Hayes filted: >>> Both biweekly and fortnightly sound acceptable. Personally I prefer >>> fortnightly though. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > >I've seen people, mainly bloggers, reckoning in "sleeps". Lately I've been averaging five or six of those a day....r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? >> Fred filted: >>> [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] >> >Momentarily - Billion SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk Steve Hayes filted: >>> Fred filted: >>>> [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > >Billion Pavement (since we seem to have drifted into matters of pondiality) ....r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? >Steve Hayes filted: >> [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > >Pavement (since we seem to have drifted into matters of pondiality) Modern Brits have no problem with billion, I daresay. That is, they no longer have the deluded belief it is a million million. Whey they did, it was years ago. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE >> Steve Hayes filted: >>> [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > longer have the deluded belief it is a million million. Whey they did, > it was years ago. Trouble is, I'm not modern. I can remember that a billion is no longer a million million, but I can't remember exactly what it's supposed to be now, so I just assume large (probably false as it's a government spokesman saying it) number. Trillion was always opaque to me - might as well say parsec. I do know what a milliard it because that is a word I learned in other languages and it hasn't changed its meaning, but I'm not about to start using it in English. SignatureRob Bannister >>> Steve Hayes filted: >>>> [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > other languages and it hasn't changed its meaning, but I'm not about to > start using it in English. I couldn't disagree with one word of that. >Trouble is, I'm not modern. I can remember that a billion is no longer a >million million, but I can't remember exactly what it's supposed to be [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >learned in other languages and it hasn't changed its meaning, but I'm >not about to start using it in English. I quote from a letter from a relative of my wife's, born in NSW in 1889, married a German in London in 1911. She wrote to her aunt in Australia in 1923: "I have been in Germany since 1920 with my husband and 4 children. We lost everything in South West Africa during the war and have started again over here. If things were not so wretched here we would be doing pretty well, but as things are now everything one saves and puts by is worth nothing a few days later. Millions are a thing of the past, and milliards will be the same soon. One only reckons in billions." She was probably bilingual in English and German, but her aunt in Australia was almost certainly monolingual in English, and she clearly expected her understand what she was writing about. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk >>> Steve Hayes filted: >>>> [quoted text clipped - 36 lines] >learned in other languages and it hasn't changed its meaning, but I'm >not about to start using it in English. Ten to the sixth, ten to the ninth and ten to the twelve correspond to a million, a billion and a trillion, is the way I remember it. A difference of three in each case, which makes it simple for me. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE >>>> Steve Hayes filted: >>>>> [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] > a million, a billion and a trillion, is the way I remember it. A > difference of three in each case, which makes it simple for me. One of the problems is that the prefix "bi-" means "two" or "twice" or "double" in most words. The word could be abolished were it not so beloved of governments who figure that the plebs can't tell the difference between ten thousand wasted dollars and ten billion. SignatureRob Bannister >>>>> Steve Hayes filted: >>>>>> [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] >One of the problems is that the prefix "bi-" means "two" or "twice" or >"double" in most words. Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE > Ten to the sixth, ten to the ninth and ten to the twelve correspond to > a million, a billion and a trillion, is the way I remember it. A > difference of three in each case, which makes it simple for me. In my schooldays we had an equally simple rule: million = a thousand thousand billion = a million million trillion = a billion billion quadrillion = a trillion trillion and so on. More importantly, the reasoning was clear. You don't need a new word for a big number until you've used up your smaller numbers. Thus, for example, the word "milliard" never made much headway in English because our logic for the way numbers were constructed said that "a thousand million" was the natural way to express this number, therefore there was no need for an extra word. There was, however, some confusion caused by people who felt for some reason that, once a thousand was passed, you should go up in steps of 10^6. For those people, a trillion was a mere 10^18 rather than the 10^24 that I had learnt. This contradiction wasn't much noticed, though, because public debt was not yet high enough to require such large numbers. The people who did need huge numbers - astronomers, for example - worked in numbers rather than words. SignaturePeter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org For an e-mail address, see my web page. > > Ten to the sixth, ten to the ninth and ten to the twelve correspond to > > a million, a billion and a trillion, is the way I remember it. A [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > 10^6. For those people, a trillion was a mere 10^18 rather than the > 10^24 that I had learnt. The system you were taught is odd; I've not heard of it before, but it is consistent. The system caused you confusion--with billion=million million (10^12), trillion = million billion (10^18)--is the official old British "long scale" system, used until 1974 when they changed to the short-scale system (billion=10^9, trillion=10^12, etc). The words themselves came via French, where they were originally "bymillion" (bi-million, or 2 "million" words, or "million million"), "trymillion" (tri-million, or 3 "million" words, or "million million million"), etc, which coincides with their meanings under the long- scale system. Much of continental Europe still uses long-scale with trillion=10^18. sjdevnull@yahoo.com filted: >> In my schooldays we had an equally simple rule: >> =A0 =A0 million =3D a thousand thousand [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >The system you were taught is odd; I've not heard of it before, but it >is consistent. It also requires people spelling out numbers at intermediate powers of ten to keep saying things like "a million billion trillion" of something....r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? > sjdevnull@yahoo.com filted: >>> In my schooldays we had an equally simple rule: [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > It also requires people spelling out numbers at intermediate powers of ten to > keep saying things like "a million billion trillion" of something....r A billion trillion (let alone a million billion trillion) was a much larger number under the old system, but the new, or American system does not do away with the necessity for such numbers. I suppose the only reason we don't hear them more often is that the banks haven't lost quite that much so far. SignatureRob Bannister Robert Bannister filted: >> It also requires people spelling out numbers at intermediate powers of ten to >> keep saying things like "a million billion trillion" of something....r [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >reason we don't hear them more often is that the banks haven't lost >quite that much so far. One of the best songs I ever had a hand in writing contained the line "wand'ring through the distant skies for a thousand million years"...I've never been *entirely* sure my lyricist didn't have Carl Sagan on his mind when he wrote it.... As I think I've mentioned before, having to stack the names of the higher powers of ten in piles like that sounds to me like a child on the playground saying "Well, I hate *you* a million, billion, squajillion, kadzillion, *pafillion* times more!"...r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? >>> Fred filted: >>>> [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > > Billion "over" to mean "more than" Frank ess <frank@fshe2fs.com>: >>>> Fred filted: >>>>> [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > >"over" to mean "more than" "up to" to mean "no more than" SignatureMike Barnes Cheshire, England > Frank ess <frank@fshe2fs.com>: >> [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > "up to" to mean "no more than" To complete the cycle one could add "under" to mean "less than", as used by writers since Wyclif, in ghastly constructions such as "under a thousand", "under a guinea", "under twenty years old". SignatureJames > Steep - (in connection with learning curves) I don't think it's just the steepness - I'm hearing more and more frequently "that's a learning curve" with no adjective at all. Since I never understood the steep curve, these plain curves leave me just as mystified. SignatureRob Bannister >> Steep - (in connection with learning curves) > >I don't think it's just the steepness - I'm hearing more and more >frequently "that's a learning curve" with no adjective at all. Since I >never understood the steep curve, these plain curves leave me just as >mystified. If you plot a graph with material to be learned on one axis, and time available for learning it on the other, then the more you have to learn, and the shorter the time, the steeper the curver. So a "steep learning curve" means that you have to learn more in less time than a shallow learning curve. But I suppose a learning curve on its own is a way to tip a rary. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk > >> Steep - (in connection with learning curves) > > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > the shorter the time, the steeper the curver. So a "steep learning curve" > means that you have to learn more in less time than a shallow learning curve. No no no (sob). I had hoped we had laid this one to rest. What you just said is not true mathematically or historically or pedagogically or psychologically or anything-ly. (1) Try drawing the graph you just imagined and described to us, being careful to label the axes, and plotting a few points. It doesn't behave the way you said. Even if you fiddle around, it's not going to work. Which of your two values, even, is the independent variable, and which the dependent? (2) Nobody ever made such graphs (except armchair handwavers trying to explain their invented histories of "steep learning curve"). Do teachers say, "Today I will estimate the amount of material I plan to assign and how much time I will allow students to master each section, plot those as points, and ponder the shape of the resulting curve"? They do not and have not. Psychologists and businesspeople *have* used "learning curve" as the actual name of some graphs, but not what you describe. These historical learning curves relate only slightly to the pop-idiom learning curve. Neither variable was "learning" or "amount to be learned" or anything like that. Generally, they plot time or trial attempts against results achieved, and they show that as time passes, the subjects achieve more. Until eventually, the subjects quit improving and maintain a steady result. The improvement makes the line *drop* steeply, and the reason assigned to explain the drop is "learning." An early psychologist timed how many seconds it took a cat to get out of a puzzle box. At first, it took a fairly long time. With each attempt, the cat got faster (i.e., the time got shorter), until the results leveled out at a very short value. If you plot those trials, you get a curve that descends steeply and then levels out. The common sense interpretation is that the cat was doing a thing called "learning" when the line was falling. Businesses measured how long it took their employees to produce a widget. At first, when the process was introduced it took a long time to make a widget, but the workers got faster and better. The time per widget decreased until eventually it stopped decreasing and leveled off. While the labor force was learning, the graph descended, but eventually they seemed to have learned all they were going to, and there were no more savings to be had by any continued learning, to the regret of the bosses. On the graphs, you could see when it was that learning took place. Learning is a *result* which the shape of the line demonstrates. Mathematicians say, "Learning *falls out* of the graph." You can point to a chart and say, "This section is when learning occurred." That's why it was called a Learning Curve. Repeat: the curve, once plotted, demonstrates that learning took place, by its steeply dropping shape. Learning was neither the horizontal nor the vertical axis. As best as I can see, the people who borrowed "learning curve" into the business and computer world didn't really understand what it meant. (Particularly that it went *down*, not up.) But that's okay. Pop idiom doesn't have to be understandable. We don't have to know *what* object it was that used to be strung high, or highly. We don't have to know what p's and q's were. We don't have to know about the original learning curves. All we have to know is what meaning is conveyed by those phrases today. And to refrain from passing on bogus etymologies. SignatureDonna Richoux >Learning is a *result* which the shape of the line demonstrates. >Mathematicians say, "Learning *falls out* of the graph." You can point >to a chart and say, "This section is when learning occurred." That's why >it was called a Learning Curve. When I first came across it, capitalised like that, I thought it was something named after someone called Learning. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk >> >> Steep - (in connection with learning curves) >> > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > Which of your two values, even, is the independent variable, and which > the dependent? It looks to me as though it work fine. The x axis is time and the y axis is effort, measured in terms of number of concepts that need to be mastered. If the time is bounded ("time available for learning") and the notion is that you need to get up to a certain level in that time, the more concepts that need to be mastered, the steeper the curve will be. There are other formulations that also result in a modern "steep learning curve" result in a line with greater slope. For example, if the x axis is proficiency level and the y axis is a measure of time or effort required to achieve that level. That this is not the graph originally drawn by those who called their graphs "learning curves" doesn't mean that they don't exist. > (2) Nobody ever made such graphs (except armchair handwavers trying > to explain their invented histories of "steep learning curve"). Do > teachers say, "Today I will estimate the amount of material I plan > to assign and how much time I will allow students to master each > section, plot those as points, and ponder the shape of the resulting > curve"? They do not and have not. Did anybody ever project a graph with a steep line (or a steeply rising set of vertical bars on a bar chart) and talk about the "steep learning curve" it represented? You betcha. > Psychologists and businesspeople *have* used "learning curve" as the > actual name of some graphs, but not what you describe. These > historical learning curves relate only slightly to the pop-idiom > learning curve. Neither variable was "learning" or "amount to be > learned" or anything like that. Sorry, but "amount to be learned" is what's on the graphs I've seen in business and the curves that have been implied by the context. "With product A, users can figure out how to use it by looking at the interface, with product B, you have to read the manual, and with product C, you pretty much have to take a one-week training class to get to the same level of proficiency." [snip original sense of the phrase] > As best as I can see, the people who borrowed "learning curve" into > the business and computer world didn't really understand what it [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > meaning is conveyed by those phrases today. And to refrain from > passing on bogus etymologies. But in this case the new meaning *does* invoke an image of a graph, so while this isn't the etymology of the term, it *is* the referent in the mind of the speaker and the audience. It's not merely that "steep learning curve" means "hard to learn" for some inexplicable reason, it's that a steeper learning curve means "more things to learn to achieve a proficiency level", which has a perfecly reasonable visualizable image. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |It's gotten to the point where the 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |only place you can get work done is Palo Alto, CA 94304 |at home, because no one bugs you, |and the best place to entertain kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |yourself is at work, because the (650)857-7572 |Internet connections are faster. | Scott Adams http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ > >> If you plot a graph with material to be learned on one axis, and > >> time available for learning it on the other, then the more you have [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > It looks to me as though it work fine. Evan, I think you know that I've been here before. I am going to have to ask you be more specific in your example(s). > The x axis is time What sort of "time"? "Time available for learning 'it'" as Steve said? So the axis goes, say, one hour, two hours, three hours...? Hours for what? This isn't time passing, right, like 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, or Day One, Day Two, but a quantity of time. But it's hard to see how that is an independent variable. "If you have one hour to work, you are expected to learn 20 pages of material. If you have two hours to work, you are expected to learn 30 pages of material (or 40, or 10, or make up what you like)." "If you have three hours..." That's a graphable relationship but it feels totally divorced from any reality. I'll try again. >and the y > axis is effort, measured in terms of number of concepts that need to > be mastered. I almost got sidetracked into discussing what "effort" means in terms of learning, but at the moment the overall label you want to give the Y axis is less important to me than the units. I'll set "effort" aside. So you are saying some range of "number of concepts," such as 5 concepts, 10 concepts, 15 concepts, etc. So now the teacher who is making the graphs is saying what, in terms of plottable points? "I will tell the class to study concepts 1-5 during Hour One. I will tell them to study concepts 6 and 7 during Hour Two. I will tell them to study concepts 8-13 in Hour Three." Something like that? When I graph that, I have to make little bars, not point, and what I notice that the steepest climbing part is the part where you cover the *most* number of topics during the hour. If you can cover a lot in a short time, that must be easy stuff. "Oh, 8-13, those sections are nearly the same." Oh, wait, now you're going to point that that "topics that need to be mastered" aren't the "needed" because the teacher assigned them, they are "needed" in some other sense of mastery of learning. What other sense? ... continued below. >If the time is bounded ("time available for learning") > and the notion is that you need to get up to a certain level in that > time, the more concepts that need to be mastered, the steeper the > curve will be. So now I'm trying to come up with something that fits this. Suppose you are given one hour to study. You work through each "concept" at your own pace. At the end of studying each "concept" you have to demonstrate your mastery of it, such as by a little quiz or other demonstration. (So far, this scenario feels fairly believable). If you fail to show mastery you have to stay at that level until you suceed. Is this the sort of thing you had in mind? Suppose in Hour One you show mastery of Concept 1. In Hour Two you show mastery of Concept 2. It starts getting a little easier, and Hour Three you master Concepts 3 and 4. In Hour Four you zip through Concepts 5 through 9. So I plot those points, and I get the same sort of result as my teacher-assignment version. Even more so. The shape climbs more steeply when the learning gets easy and more material is covered. > There are other formulations that also result in a modern "steep > learning curve" result in a line with greater slope. For example, if > the x axis is proficiency level and the y axis is a measure of time or > effort required to achieve that level. You need to put the independent variable on the horizontal axis. Achieving proficiency levels isn't what makes time pass. > That this is not the graph originally drawn by those who called their > graphs "learning curves" doesn't mean that they don't exist. Nothing in the world proves a thing doesn't exist. The ones I talked about existed, and in the past I've given URLs. If you care to trot out any proof that anybody on the planet has ever made, used, and published "Effort" graphs of limited hours versus mastery achieved, or whatever you want to call this false -- yes, what I call false -- model, please do so. Maybe that's what all my teachers were doing in those hours of lesson planning -- but I don't think so. > > (2) Nobody ever made such graphs (except armchair handwavers trying > > to explain their invented histories of "steep learning curve"). Do [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > rising set of vertical bars on a bar chart) and talk about the "steep > learning curve" it represented? You betcha. Sure. I suppose I need to repeat the basic point here. I don't care what people use the phrase to mean. They are free to say what they like. Words acquire new meanings, phrases acquire new meanings, and a fair number of these new meanings arise out of mistakes and confusions. What I do care are people who pass along invented and false (and mathematically impossible) stories as etymology. We use "(steep) learning curve" because we have heard other people use the phrase. That's really all it comes down to. Many of us know enough mathematics to know about curves that are steep when things change rapidly, and we make up a little story in our heads about difficulty and mastery and so on. But those are just our thoughts. When people ask about the origin of the phrase and we trot out our thoughts, we're no better than people who explain brass monkeys because they've read historical sea novels. Or people who defend their eggcorns as being logical and better than the original. > > Psychologists and businesspeople *have* used "learning curve" as the > > actual name of some graphs, but not what you describe. These [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > product C, you pretty much have to take a one-week training class to > get to the same level of proficiency." You are talking about the current use of the phrase. I was talking about its origins. > [snip original sense of the phrase] > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > But in this case the new meaning *does* invoke an image of a graph, so > while this isn't the etymology of the term, Well, a real graph was, although it was distorted when borrowed, as best I can explain it. >it *is* the referent in > the mind of the speaker and the audience. It's not merely that "steep > learning curve" means "hard to learn" for some inexplicable reason, > it's that a steeper learning curve means "more things to learn to > achieve a proficiency level", which has a perfecly reasonable > visualizable image. Perfectly reasonable and visualizable doesn't make it true. I totally agree with you about this part. Modern people are educated enough to know something about graphs and curves and steepness. But internal knowledge isn't enough to tell you historical origins. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux >> >> If you plot a graph with material to be learned on one axis, and >> >> time available for learning it on the other, then the more you [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > What sort of "time"? "Time available for learning 'it'" as Steve > said? No, time spent learning, out of the available time. > So the axis goes, say, one hour, two hours, three hours...? Hours > for what? This isn't time passing, right, like 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, or [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > graphable relationship but it feels totally divorced from any > reality. I'll try again. Try it this way. You have two days to learn the material. There is 100 pages of material to learn. So after the first day, you will have to have learned 50 pages, and after the second, you will have to have learned 100. The slope, the required rate of learning, the steepness of the curve, is 50 pages/day. For some other method, you only have to learn thirty pages, so the required learning rate is only 15 pages/ day. Not as steep. It doesn't really matter whether you have two days or an hour or five years, of course. Each method has a different amount of material that has to be learned in each fraction of the time available, and it will always be (proportionately) more for the first method than the second. >>and the y axis is effort, measured in terms of number of concepts >>that need to be mastered. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > "effort" aside. So you are saying some range of "number of > concepts," such as 5 concepts, 10 concepts, 15 concepts, etc. Right. Or it could be the amount of time it takes to learn the concepts. If there's twenty hours of learning to do, and I have a week, I have to spend four hours a day on it. If there's only an hour of learning to do, I only have to spend 12 minutes a day, on average. > So now the teacher who is making the graphs is saying what, in terms > of plottable points? "I will tell the class to study concepts 1-5 > during Hour One. I will tell them to study concepts 6 and 7 during > Hour Two. I will tell them to study concepts 8-13 in Hour Three." > Something like that? Not quite. Hopefully it's clearer now. > When I graph that, I have to make little bars, not point, and what I > notice that the steepest climbing part is the part where you cover the > *most* number of topics during the hour. If you can cover a lot in a > short time, that must be easy stuff. "Oh, 8-13, those sections are > nearly the same." It's not the steepest part of a curve, it's the steepness of one curve relative to another. > Oh, wait, now you're going to point that that "topics that need to be > mastered" aren't the "needed" because the teacher assigned them, they > are "needed" in some other sense of mastery of learning. What other > sense? ... continued below. In the sense of "if you don't master them, you haven't reached the milestone". >>If the time is bounded ("time available for learning") and the >>notion is that you need to get up to a certain level in that time, [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > teacher-assignment version. Even more so. The shape climbs more > steeply when the learning gets easy and more material is covered. Great. Now plot another curve. You still have four hours, but now you have 25 concepts to master. If you succeed, which curve is going to be steeper, both on average and (most likely) at its steepest point? >> There are other formulations that also result in a modern "steep >> learning curve" result in a line with greater slope. For example, [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > You need to put the independent variable on the horizontal axis. > Achieving proficiency levels isn't what makes time pass. There's absolutely no reason why the independent variable has to be wall-clock time. >> That this is not the graph originally drawn by those who called >> their graphs "learning curves" doesn't mean that they don't exist. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > my teachers were doing in those hours of lesson planning -- but I > don't think so. Why would teachers be concerned with the amount of time and effort it takes users to become familiar with a product? >> > (2) Nobody ever made such graphs (except armchair handwavers >> > trying to explain their invented histories of "steep learning [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > I do care are people who pass along invented and false (and > mathematically impossible) stories as etymology. Have I *ever* said that the way it is used today is the etymology of the phrase? All I've said is that in my 20 years working for a large corporation that makes products and makes product purchasing decisions, I have personally, with my own eyes, seen, in presentations, people put up graphs that match this interpretation of "learning curve" where the speaker talked about one represented product as having a steeper learning curve than another based on the steeper slope of the lines (either drawn or implicit in relative bar height) between different alternatives. I can't, of course, give you URLs. > We use "(steep) learning curve" because we have heard other people > use the phrase. That's really all it comes down to. Many of us know > enough mathematics to know about curves that are steep when things > change rapidly, and we make up a little story in our heads about > difficulty and mastery and so on. And then, having done so and convinced ourselves that it's a useful concept, we create figures that reflect them. > But those are just our thoughts. When people ask about the origin of > the phrase and we trot out our thoughts, we're no better than people > who explain brass monkeys because they've read historical sea > novels. Or people who defend their eggcorns as being logical and > better than the original. Again, who here is saying "better than the original"? >> > Psychologists and businesspeople *have* used "learning curve" as >> > the actual name of some graphs, but not what you describe. These [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > You are talking about the current use of the phrase. I was talking > about its origins. If so, you have not made that clear in this particular discussion. Steve described a plot for which the steepness of the line means that something is harder to learn, and you said that it "is not true mathematically or .. anything-ly". I said explicitly that such a graph "is not the graph originally drawn by those who called their graphs 'learning curves'", and yet you still took exception to my claim that such graphs exist. You asked if there was "any proof that anybody on the planet has ever made, used, and published" such graphs. It seems we're out of the realm of "origins". >> [snip original sense of the phrase] >> [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Well, a real graph was, although it was distorted when borrowed, as > best I can explain it. The new meaning invokes an image of the graph. The graph whose image it invokes was not the graph that is the source of the term. >>it *is* the referent in the mind of the speaker and the audience. >>It's not merely that "steep learning curve" means "hard to learn" [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > know something about graphs and curves and steepness. But internal > knowledge isn't enough to tell you historical origins. You're the only one in this thread arguing about historical origins. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |The General Theorem of Usenet 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |Information: If you really want to Palo Alto, CA 94304 |know the definitive answer, post |the wrong information, and wait for kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |someone to come by and explain in (650)857-7572 |excruciating detail precisely how |wrong you are. http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | Eric The Read [snip much on learning curves] Evan, I'm getting no joy out of wrangling with you in these long posts. I wrote a bunch of responses to your message which I don't think are likely to convince you of anything. So for now I'm just going to post one short comment, to this: >All I've said is that in my 20 years working for a large > corporation that makes products and makes product purchasing [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > height) between different alternatives. I can't, of course, give you > URLs. This is the sort of thing I'd like to see for myself, to see what set of data was actually graphed, by what measurements, giving what results. Pity that it's not a thing you have access to. If you (or anyone else here) happen across such a thing again, please remember that I'd be interested in seeing it. SignatureHoping for the best -- Donna Richoux > Sorry, but "amount to be learned" is what's on the graphs I've seen in > business and the curves that have been implied by the context. "With > product A, users can figure out how to use it by looking at the > interface, with product B, you have to read the manual, and with > product C, you pretty much have to take a one-week training class to > get to the same level of proficiency." That's where the people who peddle this hogwash always get it back to front, in my opinion. In your example, learning happens very rapidly with product A - the curve rapidly jumps to the place where a lot has been learnt - while the one-week requirement for C means that C has a very shallow learning curve. In other words, if those curves made any sense then "steep learning curve" would mean "easy to learn". In practice it means the opposite. I think that's because the curves don't make any sense. The marketing people do a lot of hand-waving, and produce lots of pretty pictures that include graphs with unlabelled axes, and it's all to hide the fact that what they're saying has very little real content. I'd better make it clear here that I'm talking about current practice, not etymology. I agree with Donna that the original learning curves were something entirely different. I believe that all this confusion has come about because somebody borrowed the phrase "learning curve" without understanding what it meant. SignaturePeter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org For an e-mail address, see my web page. >> Sorry, but "amount to be learned" is what's on the graphs I've seen >> in business and the curves that have been implied by the context. [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > has come about because somebody borrowed the phrase "learning curve" > without understanding what it meant. Seems that way. The smartest thing to say about a new process is that "there is a learning curve to consider" and let it go at that. SignatureSkitt (AmE) >>> Sorry, but "amount to be learned" is what's on the graphs I've seen >>> in business and the curves that have been implied by the context. [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] >Seems that way. The smartest thing to say about a new process is that >"there is a learning curve to consider" and let it go at that. A steep learning curve means there is a lot to learn in a short period of time. It is a popular phrase in the military. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE >>>> Sorry, but "amount to be learned" is what's on the graphs I've seen >>>> in business and the curves that have been implied by the context. [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > A steep learning curve means there is a lot to learn in a short period > of time. It is a popular phrase in the military. It wasn't in my day (1956-1959). I heard the phrase at Lockheed, probably in the 1980s or 1990s. Most likely the latter. SignatureSkitt (AmE) >>>>> Sorry, but "amount to be learned" is what's on the graphs I've seen >>>>> in business and the curves that have been implied by the context. [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] >It wasn't in my day (1956-1959). I heard the phrase at Lockheed, probably >in the 1980s or 1990s. Most likely the latter. The term is older than you think it is, IINM. I heard it many times in the 1970s, when I worked for the Navy, and I believe I heard it back in the late 1960s in the private firms I worked for. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE >>>>>> Sorry, but "amount to be learned" is what's on the graphs I've seen >>>>>> in business and the curves that have been implied by the context. [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > the 1970s, when I worked for the Navy, and I believe I heard it back > in the late 1960s in the private firms I worked for. Serious question: did you hear it from engineers, or from management types? SignaturePeter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org For an e-mail address, see my web page. <snip> >> [Learning curve]is older than you think it is, IINM. I heard it many times in >> the 1970s, when I worked for the Navy, and I believe I heard it back >> in the late 1960s in the private firms I worked for. > >Serious question: did you hear it from engineers, or from management types? Interesting question. As I recall, those few times I heard it from an engineer was when a management type said it first. It is a management term, IMO. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE >> Sorry, but "amount to be learned" is what's on the graphs I've seen in >> business and the curves that have been implied by the context. "With [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > about because somebody borrowed the phrase "learning curve" without > understanding what it meant. I read someone in another newsgroup this morning who was talking about "learning curves of different sizes". I remembered to keep quiet this time. SignatureRob Bannister >> >> Steep - (in connection with learning curves) >> > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] >curves. All we have to know is what meaning is conveyed by those phrases >today. And to refrain from passing on bogus etymologies. I wasn't apssing on an etymology, i was just explaining what it meant to me. I don't use the term myself, but it's what i picture when other people use it. And what I think of is computer programs and how long it takes me to learn enough about using them to get useful results. But yes, it would probably be the other way round. You get a curve that starts off steeply, and then levels out to a plateau, sort of. In other words, when you begin learning it you can quickly learn to do 90% of the stuff you need to use the program for, and then 90% of the effort to learn the remaining 10%. So that produces a steep curve that levels off. Or you can think of it another way, where the line starts off shallow, showing the amount of effort you have to put in (vertical axis) and amount that has to be learned (horizontal), and it gets steeper and steeper. So the metaphor doesn't make much sense to me, and I don't use it, but that's what I think people mean by it when they use it. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk > An early psychologist timed how many seconds it took a cat to get out of > a puzzle box. At first, it took a fairly long time. With each attempt, [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > interpretation is that the cat was doing a thing called "learning" when > the line was falling. The Wikipedia articles on Ebbinghaus and the Learning Curve refer to two different relations, sadly vaguely, and without a graph of either one labeled "Learning Curve": a "steep" (presumably exponential) increase in learning time with the amount of random information to learn, and an exponential decrease in learning time with experience. The former would be the "steep learning curve" that describes the difficulty of learning complex tasks. Even that doesn't really map all that well to the popular idiom, though, since it doesn't give a sense of reaching a point where you're done with the effort of learning and it gets easy. The latter is what you describe. What my math teacher called a learning curve back in high school was its inverse: a sigmoid curve relating the speed of learning or rate of success to experience. The steep section of the sigmoid describes the *ease* of learning something to near-perfection after practice. The long, flat sections before and after the steep part are the hard parts: getting started, and reaching perfection. ¬R >>> Steep - (in connection with learning curves) >> I don't think it's just the steepness - I'm hearing more and more [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > But I suppose a learning curve on its own is a way to tip a rary. Yes, but there never seems to be agreement on whether they are talking about a difficult task of learning, clever learners or speed teaching - in fact, the people who use it don't seem to be sure what they mean at all. SignatureRob Bannister Robert Bannister <robban1@bigpond.com>: >>>> Steep - (in connection with learning curves) >>> I don't think it's just the steepness - I'm hearing more and more [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >in fact, the people who use it don't seem to be sure what they mean at >all. In my experience "steep learning curve" means that early efforts produce little reward. You need to learn a great deal before you have anything to show for it. I don't think I've heard it used in any other sense. That's not to say that people don't use it otherwise, of course, just that I haven't heard them. SignatureMike Barnes Cheshire, England > Robert Bannister <robban1@bigpond.com>: >>> [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > That's not to say that people don't use it otherwise, of course, just > that I haven't heard them. Sorry, but I've heard it used to mean "quick learning". I used to listen when people said it, but I've given up now. SignatureRob Bannister Robert Bannister <robban1@bigpond.com>: >>In my experience "steep learning curve" means that early efforts >>produce little reward. You need to learn a great deal before you have [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >Sorry, but I've heard it used to mean "quick learning". That must literally drive you crazy. SignatureMike Barnes Cheshire, England >Robert Bannister <robban1@bigpond.com>: >>> [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] >That's not to say that people don't use it otherwise, of course, just >that I haven't heard them. You don't say? ObAUE: Few people don't know what "I've heard it.." means. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE >Fred filted: >> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > >Steep - (in connection with learning curves) Iconic. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE > >Fred filted: > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > Iconic. That and "legendary". -- Jerry Friedman > On Jan 26, 1:12 pm, "djarvi...@gmail.com" <djarvi...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you generally [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Literally - "Refute" was a perfectly respectable word until the newsreaders got hold of it. "Literally", I agree, has literally gone out of control. SignaturePeter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org For an e-mail address, see my web page. >> Literally - >> >"Refute" was a perfectly respectable word until the newsreaders got hold >of it. "Literally", I agree, has literally gone out of control. James Joyce (Ulysses): Wagnerian music, though confessedly grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to follow at the first go-off but the music of Mercadante's Huguenots, Meyerbeer's Seven last words on the Cross, and Mozart's Twelfth Mass, he simply revelled in, the Gloria in that being to his mind the acme of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a cocked hat. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk >>> Literally - >>> [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a cocked >hat. I wasn't aware that Mozart wrote that many masses. My favourite is his Requiem Mass. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE >>> Literally - >>> [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a cocked >hat. I wasn't aware that Mozart wrote that many masses. My favourite is his Requiem Mass. Which must be his twelfth, if he wrote twelve. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, An American who lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE > "Refute" was a perfectly respectable word until the newsreaders got > hold of it. Back in the nineteenth century? The OED has an interesting note: 5. trans. To reject (an allegation, assertion, report, etc.) as without foundation; to repudiate. Criticized as erroneous in usage guides in the 20th cent. In many instances it is unclear whether there is an implication of argument accompanying the assertion that something is baseless (making the use sense 2). In other words, perhaps it's like some cases of purported singular "y'all": the speaker, in writing it, believes that there is is evidence that could be presented or, perhaps, that the simple act of denial should be considered evidence and thus constitutes a refutation. (Note that there's nothing in the earliest modern sense[1] that requires that the rebuttal be considered persuasive by others.) [1] The OED's earliest attested sense, marked "obsolete" is "to refuse or reject (a thing or person). SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |If to "man" a phone implies handing 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |it over to a person of the male Palo Alto, CA 94304 |gender, then to "monitor" it |suggests handing it over to a kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |lizard. (650)857-7572 | Rohan Oberoi http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ On Jan 26, 11:12 am, "djarvi...@gmail.com" <djarvi...@gmail.com> wrote: > Any other candidates for 'worst English word'? cleave njg >On Jan 26, 11:12 am, "djarvi...@gmail.com" <djarvi...@gmail.com> >wrote: > >> Any other candidates for 'worst English word'? > >cleave Oversight. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk >Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you generally >can't decipher what is meant. By the time you explain what you meant, >you've wasted more verbiage than you could have possibly saved by >using 'biweekly'. If you confine it to meaning "twice a week" there's always "fortnightly" for once every two weeks. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk > Twice a week, or once every two weeks? Even in context, you generally > can't decipher what is meant. By the time you explain what you meant, > you've wasted more verbiage than you could have possibly saved by > using 'biweekly'. > Is there a process by which you can perma-ban words? > Any other candidates for 'worst English word'? Tax. SignatureAndy Clews University of Sussex *** Remove DENTURES if replying by email *** On 27 Jan 2010, wrote > Thus spake djarvinen@gmail.com (djarvinen@gmail.com) unto the > assembled multitudes: [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Tax. Coupled with "refund", though, it becomes one of the best. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed > On 27 Jan 2010, wrote > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > Coupled with "refund", though, it becomes one of the best. Well give me $10,000. Imagine how happy you'll be when I refund it in a year's time. >> On 27 Jan 2010, wrote >>>> Any other candidates for 'worst English word'? >>> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Well give me $10,000. Imagine how happy you'll be when I refund it > in a year's time. I always owe a little bit, most of the rest of the tax having been withheld near year's end when I withdraw from my IRA. SignatureSkitt (AmE) Fred wrote on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:07:10 +1300: >> On 27 Jan 2010, wrote >> [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >> >> Coupled with "refund", though, it becomes one of the best. That reminds me of the ads asking me to buy tax programs and telling me that I will get my "refund" extremely rapidly. It has been many years since I got a refund and in fact I regard that as an error on my part giving Uncle money to which he is not entitled. SignatureJames Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not James Silverton <not.jim.silverton@verizon.net>: >That reminds me of the ads asking me to buy tax programs and telling me >that I will get my "refund" extremely rapidly. It has been many years >since I got a refund and in fact I regard that as an error on my part >giving Uncle money to which he is not entitled. I get a tax refund every year. But the tax office pesters me about savings accounts where I have elected to receive gross interest (no tax deducted). They want me to revert to the more usual tax-deducted interest payments, so that they'd have to pay me an even bigger refund every year. SignatureMike Barnes Cheshire, England > On 27 Jan 2010, wrote > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > Coupled with "refund", though, it becomes one of the best. Until rephrased as "interest-free loan to the government". SignatureRoland Hutchinson He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba," ... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy. --Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ ) |
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