A great many technical people mispronounce the mathematical term EXPONENTIAL as EXPIDENTIAL
This puzzles me, as it seems to me glaringly obvious that the root is EXPONENT.
Googling EXPEDENTIAL yielded 116 hits, EXPIDENTIAL 13. Apparently the former "spelling" is preferred, which suggests that they perceive a relationship with EXPEDITE???
Comments solicited, Gerry GerryC [dot] 1 [atsign] gmail [period] com
>A great many technical people mispronounce the mathematical term > EXPONENTIAL >as > EXPIDENTIAL
>This puzzles me, as it seems to me glaringly obvious that the root is >EXPONENT.
>Googling EXPEDENTIAL yielded 116 hits, EXPIDENTIAL 13. Apparently the >former "spelling" is preferred, which suggests that they perceive a >relationship with EXPEDITE???
>Comments solicited,
Googling "expotential" gives (somebody shoot me now) 29,400 hits...some of these are bound to be legitimate uses of a much less common word, or of some brand name, but still....r
-- "You got Schadenfreude on my Weltanschauung!" "You got Weltanschauung in my Schadenfreude!"
> Googling "expotential" gives (somebody shoot me now) 29,400 > hits...some of these are bound to be legitimate uses of a much less > common word, or of some brand name, but still....r
Google Books has 409 hits, most of them technical, dating back to
Strictly speaking, the trajectory in air is an expotential curve with two asymptotes; the _first_ is the axis of the piece, which is tanent to the trajectory when the initial velocity is infinite; the _second_ is the vertical line towrad which the trajectory approaches as the horizontal component of the velocity diminishes, and the effect of the force of gravity increases.
Bento, _A Course of Instruction in Ordnance and Gunnery_, 1862.
Some of them look to be mistakes, but I can't be sure of all of them and suspect that they may mean something more specific.
-- Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |Those who study history are doomed 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |to watch others repeat it. Palo Alto, CA 94304
> > Googling "expotential" gives (somebody shoot me now) 29,400 > > hits...some of these are bound to be legitimate uses of a much less > > common word, or of some brand name, but still....r
> Google Books has 409 hits, most of them technical, dating back to
> Strictly speaking, the trajectory in air is an expotential curve > with two asymptotes; the _first_ is the axis of the piece, which > is tanent to the trajectory when the initial velocity is infinite; > the _second_ is the vertical line towrad which the trajectory > approaches as the horizontal component of the velocity diminishes, > and the effect of the force of gravity increases.
> Bento, _A Course of Instruction in Ordnance and > Gunnery_, 1862.
> Some of them look to be mistakes, but I can't be sure of all of them > and suspect that they may mean something more specific.
The example above may be a transcription error.
It's an eggcorn, although it is not impossible that some scientists or engineers use the term for a special purpose.
At thepotatoeater.blogspot.com/ the author admits: "methinks it was only this year that i realized that the word is 'exponential' and not 'expotential' "
Googling _exponential expotential_ shows that many writers manage to use both in the same document.
"Adrian Bailey" <da...@hotmail.com> writes: > "Evan Kirshenbaum" <kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com> wrote in message > news:zm3ae3mn.fsf@hpl.hp.com... >> R H Draney <dadoc...@spamcop.net> writes:
>> > Googling "expotential" gives (somebody shoot me now) 29,400 >> > hits...some of these are bound to be legitimate uses of a much less >> > common word, or of some brand name, but still....r
>> Google Books has 409 hits, most of them technical, dating back to
>> Strictly speaking, the trajectory in air is an expotential curve >> with two asymptotes; the _first_ is the axis of the piece, which >> is tanent to the trajectory when the initial velocity is infinite; >> the _second_ is the vertical line towrad which the trajectory >> approaches as the horizontal component of the velocity diminishes, >> and the effect of the force of gravity increases.
>> Bento, _A Course of Instruction in Ordnance and >> Gunnery_, 1862.
>> Some of them look to be mistakes, but I can't be sure of all of them >> and suspect that they may mean something more specific.
> The example above may be a transcription error.
If it is (and it may well be), then it's one that made it past the editors. I made sure to look at the page to check that it wasn't an OCR error. It also gets 519 hits on Google Scholar, including in article titles. But you're probably right that these are transcription errors or typesetting errors.
-- Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |The bathwater, in this case, does 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |not appear to ever have contained Palo Alto, CA 94304 |any baby. | kirshenb...@hpl.hp.com | ronniecat (650)857-7572
R H Draney wrote: > Googling "expotential" gives (somebody shoot me now) 29,400 hits...some of these > are bound to be legitimate uses of a much less common word, or of some brand > name, but still....r
I think that's what you have when you're burned out in your career and now you're going nowhere.
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