"drastically" as "beneficially" or "impressively"

[Jonathan Lighter]

"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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