work in progress/process

[bbeeton]

I seem to be seeing "work in process" more frequently recently, where I'd expect to see "work in progress". Maybe it's just what I happen to be reading, because an n-gram shows that as of 2019, "progress" occurs about four times as often as "process". In fact, "progress" has consistently been more frequent than "process" since the beginning of the timespan shown, 1800.

Both plots show peaks and valleys, with the most noticeable feature appearing in about 1945: a dip in "progress" corresponding to a peak in "process", in a ratio of about 3:2. That's the high point of "process", and it's been more-or-less subsiding ever since. "Progress" ebbs and flows, with its peak in about 1980, about 15% above where it is now.

"Progress" implies something with a clear start and finish (a game, or the writing of a book), while "process" usually refers to a continuous activity (perhaps work done on an assembly line). But n-grams don't supply context, so what might account for the difference in usage?

[Slava]

My personal take on the reason is that it's poor editing, or mishearing of the source and coming up with 'process'.

Your definition of progress doesn't leave much hope for progressives in politics, does it? The starting point may be clear, the status quo, but the end point is always further away, as the status quo, once changed, becomes a new status quo.

[bnjtokyo]

bbeeton, I don't know if this example will help, but I have been reading an academic tome, "How to Read a Japanese Poem" by Steven D. Carter, Columbia University Press, 2019. And in it I came across the following sentence. (You gotta read all the way to the end)

This tradition continues today, as witnessed by numerous modern editions of poetry such as the ten-volume "Shinpen Kokka taikan," which includes indexes for every single line of the poems in the imperial anthologies, and a similar indexed collection of the linked-verse canon, "Renga taikan," now in the process of publication.

Despite this rather ponderous example, it is a well-written book and includes quite a few interesting and enjoyable poems. It is surprising that with modernized orthography and romanization I can read the poems fairly well and almost understand them while my wife CAN understand them.

[Audiendus]

a similar indexed collection of the linked-verse canon, "Renga taikan," now in the process of publication.

That is "in the process", not "in process".

"In the process (of)" is a common phrase, but "in process" sounds odd to me.