"drastically" as "beneficially" or "impressively"

[Laurence Horn]

Yup, I guess there are good drasms and bad drasms.

LH

On Feb 20, 2012, at 2:35 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> "Drastically increases" must go back to my high-school days at least.
> It sounds absolutely normal and familiar to me.
>
> In context, it seems to mean "by a great deal; dramatically."
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 12:50 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "drastically" as "beneficially" or "impressively"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> He probably meant "radically";-)
>>
>> But, on a more serious note, doesn't it mean "significantly" here?
>>
>>    VS-)
>>
>> On 2/20/2012 12:08 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>> Referring to the creation of a single-atom transistor by a team from
>>> the University of New South Wales and Purdue University, John Markoff
>>> (who should know better) ends his article in today's NYTimes (paper;
>>> same online) with
>>>
>>> "Shrinking conventional computer circuitry ... drastically increases
>>> the amount of data they can store."
>>>
>>> I suppose we can expect dire consequences when that single atom
>>> decides to invoke the laws of quantum mechanics and changes its state
>>> unpredictably.  But perhaps the pursuit of nanophysics is more
>>> drastic (effectively severe, like strong medicine) than dramatic.
>>>
>>> Joel
>>>
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>>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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