One word which drives me over the edge is iteration. Its misuse is not confined to culinary matters, but that is where I see it most often, alas even here.
I read a sentence like
The first time I made it, it came out too salty, but the second iteration was much better.
This is nonsensical unless the dish was made three times, not the two the writer presumably meant. The first version is not an iteration, the second may be. Iteration means repetition. The third time the dish is made is the second iteration. Maybe.
My second complaint about the usage is that iteration is used as a precise scientific and mathematical term for a repetition.
QuoteThe repetition of an operation upon its product, as in finding the cube of a cube; esp. the repeated application of a formula devised to provide a closer approximation to the solution of a given equation when an approximate solution is substituted in the formula, so that a series of successively closer approximations may be obtained; a single application of such a formula; also, the formula itself.
Oxford English Dictionary
So, if you change the process it is not an iteration either. Presumably, the writer of the salty dish sentence added less salt the second time, thereby altering the formula.
What he or she made was a version. Iteration is not a more clever way of saying version - it is a dumb way to say it.
Rant over - as you were.
