RE: Actionable

["Lauren" <lauren -at- writeco -dot- net>]

Is Ned having an unhappy day?  

I think that when people discuss a "learning curve," they're not thinking of
a chart, but of a combination of a curve in the road and a steep hill.  So
if a new employee cannot navigate the "steep learning curve," then the
employee will careen off the cliff of ignorance.

Lauren

> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+lauren=writeco -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com 
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lauren=writeco -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> ] On Behalf Of Ned Bedinger
> Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 5:17 PM
> To: Fred Ridder
> Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Re: Actionable
> 
> Fred Ridder wrote:
> > Nancy Allison wrote:
> >> When did this word go from meaning "subject to or 
> affording ground for an
> >> action or suit at law" to "something that can be acted on"?
> >>
> >> My 1981 Webster's Collegiate Dictionary provides only the 
> first definition.
> 
> 
> > Mathematicians cannot figure the general public's theft of 
> their parameter; 
> > musicians tootle that their crescendo does not mean 
> ''climax''; chemists react 
> > to the rip-off of their carbon-based organic. Now lawyers, 
> like Hamlet, have 
> > lost the name of actionable. Sue me. 
> 
> 
> Fred--
> 
> You and Safire forgot to mention the #1 ripoff of the century:  the
> learning curve.  May I?
> 
> Psychologists tear their hair and shred their clothes over the
> arrogation of their learning curve.  In science, the graph of 
> a learning
> curve has time as the x axis, and a quantification of 
> learning as the y
> axis. Try it.
> 
>                  |   /
>        Learning  |  /
> 		| /
> 		|/________
>                     Time
> 
> A steep learning curve means that as time passes, the amount 
> of learning
> grows quickly.
> 
> A graphic expression meaning "It is hard to learn" would be a 
> flatter or
> more shallow learning curve.
> 
> So Why o Why does every fool in the world use the epithet "steep
> learning curve" to mean "It is hard to learn?" It means "Easy 
> to learn".
> Every time someone says steep to mean shallow, I feel like hollering 
> "Sit down and shut up, fool."
> 
> I worry that some invisible policy maker will take all the misspoken 
> complaints about things being too hard, and judge us to be a society 
> that likes work to be really really really hard, and make it so. 
> Frankly, I worry that this has already happened, and will continue 
> happening until people stop misspeaking about the learning curve.
> 
> Phew.
> 
> Ned Bedinger "Oops, took the wrong pill."
> doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com
> 
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