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Chris -- 2018-04-11
“Exuberant” (elated, enthusiastic) is frequently used to mean “exorbitant” (exceeding a reasonable amount), but rarely vice versa. “Exuberant price” is surprisingly common (it’s included in Paul Brians’s Common Errors in English). Here are two examples from Bryan Garner’s “Usage Tip of the Day” (Oxford University Press):
o “Empty stands translate to fans saying we are not going to pay exuberant [read ‘exorbitant’] prices to watch whiny high-priced, watered-down talent.” Gregg Ebbert, “Empty Seats Tell Story of Baseball,” Morning Call (Allentown), 8 May 1997.
o “Originally designed by Bernard Lipfert for the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company, these rare composition dolls command an exuberant [read ‘exorbitant’] price on the secondary market.” Denise I. O’Neal, “Youthful Indulgences,” Chicago Sun-Times, 16 May 1997, Weekend §, at 3.
When I included the instances of “exuberant” misspelled “exhuberant,” I counted more than 150 instances of “exuberant price” in a Google search.
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