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Expectation vs Prospection - What's the difference?

expectation | prospection |

As nouns the difference between expectation and prospection

is that expectation is the act or state of expecting or looking forward to an event as about to happen while prospection is the action of looking forward into the future formed by analogy with retrospection not in common use, but there is some modern use and the oed gives citation back to the 19th and 17th centuries.

expectation

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • The act or state of expecting or looking forward to an event as about to happen.
  • *
  • *:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron;. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé moustache.
  • That which is expected or looked for.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title= “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./1/1
  • , passage=And so it had always pleased M. Stutz to expect great things from the dark young man whom he had first seen in his early twenties?; and his expectations had waxed rather than waned on hearing the faint bruit of the love of Ivor and Virginia—for Virginia, M. Stutz thought, would bring fineness to a point in a man like Ivor Marlay,
  • The prospect of the future; grounds upon which something excellent is expected to occur; prospect of anything good to come, especially of property or rank.
  • *1816 , (Jane Austen), , Vol.1 Ch.7:
  • *:Emma was not sorry to be pressed. She read, and was surprized. The style of the letter was much above her expectation . There were not merely no grammatical errors, but as a composition it would not have disgraced a gentleman; the language, though plain, was strong and unaffected, and the sentiments it conveyed very much to the credit of the writer. It was short, but expressed good sense, warm attachment, liberality, propriety, even delicacy of feeling. She paused over it, while Harriet stood anxiously watching for her opinion, with a "Well, well," and was at last forced to add, "Is it a good letter? or is it too short?"
  • The value of any chance (as the prospect of prize or property) which depends upon some contingent event.
  • (lb) The first moment; the long-run average value of a variable over many independent repetitions of an experiment.
  • (lb) The arithmetic mean.
  • The leaving of a disease principally to the efforts of nature to effect a cure.
  • Usage notes

    * (value of any chance) Expectations are computed for or against the occurrence of the event.

    Synonyms

    * (sense) arithmetic mean; average

    See also

    * (statistics)

    prospection

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The action of looking forward into the future. Formed by analogy with retrospection. Not in common use, but there is some modern use and the OED gives citation back to the 19th and 17th centuries.
  • The act of prospecting for minerals. Also not in common use.
  • A search for archaeological remains, usually using modern technology, for example ground penetrating radar.
  • References

    * "Prospection as a feature of Structure" Mona Baker, Gill Francis, Elena Tognini-Bonelli "Text and technology: in honour of John Sinclair" http://books.google.com/books?id=7-Bzc_XjBikC&p71, 1993 John Benjamins Publishing Company ISBN 978-90-272-2138-4- * "First part of the prospection fulfilled, prospection still active" Susan Hunston, Gill Francis, "Pattern grammar: a corpus-driven approach to the lexical grammar of English" http://books.google.co/books?id=UUmtzBRd4VcC&, p242, 2000 John Benjamins Publishing Company, ISBN 978-90-272-2274-9 * "The problem with this error of retrospection is that it can keep us from discovering our errors of prospection" Daniel Gilbert "Stumbling on Happiness" Knopf New York 2006 ISBN 1-4000-4266-6}}