word choice - Can something become "increasingly smaller"?


I was reading a news story recently, and saw this sentence:



"Police used tear gas and what appeared to be plastic bullets against increasingly smaller groups of protesters."



I wasn't sure if it was right or not. It seems somewhat oxymoronic. Can something become increasingly smaller? Is that logical?



Answer




increase verb |1nˈkris| |ɪŋˈkris|


become or make greater in size, amount, intensity, or degree



The key word here is degree. So in your example, it's not the group itself that is modified by increasingly, but the degree to which its size is changing. It just happens to be getting smaller. So, yes, something can logically become increasingly smaller.


Of course, if the total number of protesters is staying the same, but they are simply breaking into smaller groups, then the number of groups is in fact increasing. This may be what the writer intended to convey.


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