Comment by aaroninsf
4 days ago
> The bad news about modern neural networks is that they're enormous. The good news is that the enormity helps...
I always catch on misuse of enormity
It's now so widespread the misuse has gained despairing acceptance, as with "infer" for "imply"... but that doesn't make it any less wince-inducing.
This usage is etymological. So its fine. I don't like it when we trash and etymology, but in this case we're restoring it, or at least not making it worse.
("ex normal" doesn't clearly mean "evil"/"sinful", and Latin already had it as "big".)
that's just how language works.. do you think that in your day to day life, you have never used a single word differently than how it was conceived of being used 10, 50, or 100 years ago?
Can you explain for the rest of us the problem with this usage?
I think neural networks are enormous, why is that misuse?
Merriam Webster:
"""
The original meanings that enormity carried related to great wickedness, and some assert that enormity should today only be used with such meanings, and that enormousness is the proper word to use to mean "large size." Despite these claims, enormity frequently refers to large size, either literal or figurative, though it usually suggests something so large as to seem overwhelming.
"""
Enormity has two meanings:
- great magnitude/size/scale of something - wickedness, evil, atrocity
Purists insist on the second meaning only, and will perhaps suggest you swap with ‘enormousness’ instead.
Wow, insisting on archaic definitions of words for pedantic reasons sounds exhausting.