Recently I've been thinking how wildly inappropriate the word "proliferation" is when used to describe the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Proliferation implies exponential growth, but nuclear weapons have only been acquired by a mere handful of states -- nine out of a possible 195.

Proliferation is a supposedly a rapid process, but the amount of time for this admitted handful to acquire nuclear weapons has been three quarters of a century. Not exactly breakneck speed, is it?

Wouldn't a phrase like "nuclear ooze" be more appropriate? Or "nuclear glacial creep"?

And less flippantly, doesn't the use of a misleading word (like "proliferation") tend to obscure the realities in play and encourage us to fundamentally misjudge the issues at stake?