Re: Gold Prices This Monday Morning
- From: oly <oly2059@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:12:55 -0700 (PDT)
On Jun 30, 9:52 am, nos...@xxxxxxxxxx (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
In article <4hoh64lir6fs91om0rm4up4mj0dnln2...@xxxxxxx>,
tony cooper <tony_cooper...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:04:12 -0700 (PDT), oly <oly2...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
The price of oil has gone hyperbolic, like gold did at the end of
1979. Sooner or later you have to think a lot of the froth will come
off, somehow.
This is not a "spelling flame" post, but a question based on an
interest in words and word usage. (I spend most of my online time in
newsgroups centering around word usage)
How is the price of oil or gold "hyperbolic"? Hyperbole is
exaggeration. A statement that is "hyperbolic" is a statement that
intentionally overstates some aspect.
Oil and gold prices are actual figures. However high the prices go,
the prices are the actual figures. There is no exaggeration in
stating what those prices are.
Why did you choose "hyperbolic" there?
A Hyperbola is a curve that approaches a pair of straight lines as
asymptotes. One of the better known examples is the equation y=1/x,
which approaches a vertical asymptote as you approach x=0 from either
direction. So perhaps the original poster meant that oil prices are
approaching infinity at some definate date in the near future.
Of course, it is possible to construct hyperbolas that increase in far
less dramatic ways.
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You know more about this than me; but yes I was thinking in terms of a
curve, and curiously, the fact that commodity markets don't go up to
inifinity was also in lurking the back of my mind (even as the most
dramtic hyperbola never reaches infinity).
Tony should also note that the dictionary associates "hyperbolic" with
"hyperbola", and not with "hyperbole". We associate somebody else
with hyperbole.
oly
.
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