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In my mind, -v³ would be the same as -vvv, and -v⁴ for -vvvv, and on and on.

I suppose you could really take it to some absurd level with -v¹⁰ for -vvvvvvvvvv

The v is log scale, which does make some sense in terms of output volume. ;)

Ah, but you'd have to error on any even power, since of course a negative squared is positive, thus -v^2 would be v^2 and without the dash you can't be sure it's a switch.

There's an easy solution to this: just use i for even exponents.

So (-iv)² = -vv and once you've escaped the brackets in bash all is good.

I think we're on to something here....

Nah exponents have higher precedence than signs, it gets annoying otherwise.