Saturday, 3 October 2020

In Future, Exponential

 In Future, and Exponential

I've long thought that speaking of 'in future', rather than 'in the future', was a mark -- in Britain -- of not quite having had the best education (or not benefiting from it).  I mean goodness, no one speaks of 'in past', rather than 'in the past' (do they?).  But lo and behold, Robin Collingwood, in his Intellectual Autobiography, speaks in that way--'in future'.  Collingwood was no slouch. 

In another case of fine distinctions being lost -- this can be laid at the door of the Coronavirus pandemic, I mean if correlation is causation (:  -- 'exponential', which has traditionally had its precise mathematical meaning, is, if recent speech is a sign, in danger of meaning 'rapid and scary!'.  

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