Wordcraft Home Page    Wordcraft Community Home Page    Forums  Hop To Forum Categories  Potpourri    figures lie and liars figure...
Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
figures lie and liars figure... Login/Join
 
Member
Picture of Kalleh
posted
I am reading a book about speaking ("Speak Like Churchill; Stand Like Lincoln"), and there is a chapter called "Lies, damned lies, and statistics!" The author was talking about how to use statistics effectively in a speech...but also how some people fudge with them. Then he said the word statistics comes from the Latin word statista, that means "politician." I didn't know that!

[I looked the word fudge up to see how the meaning of "cheat" or "exaggerate" is linked to the candy, and I didn't find a definitive explanation. Does anyone know?]
 
Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of arnie
posted Hide Post
quote:
he said the word statistics comes from the Latin word statista, that means "politician."

Close. That's Italian, not Latin. The Italian, meaning "one skilled in statecraft" is from from the Latin status, "state".

Fudge, as a verb meaning to put together clumsily, is from 1610 but the noun, meaning candy, is from 1895. See Online Etymology Dictionary.


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 
Posts: 10940 | Location: LondonReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
Here's another medium in which lies, damned lies, and statistics come together: http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/...ago/H/bo3696845.html
I have it. Highly recommended.


It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti
 
Posts: 6187 | Location: Muncie, IndianaReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
According to the OED, statistics was borrowed from German statistik and French statistique, which were borrowed from modern Latin statisticus, from an unattested presumably Latin word *statista.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,
 
Posts: 2428Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Kalleh
posted Hide Post
So, arnie, while there was etymology for the verb fudge, there wasn't for the candy. Is it the same etymology...or a completely different word?

I love the book, "How to Lie with Statistics."
 
Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of arnie
posted Hide Post
Kalleh,

See the link I posted. It says
quote:
fudge (n.)
type of confection, 1895, Amer.Eng., apparently a word first used among students at women's colleges; perhaps a special use of fudge (v.).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: arnie,


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 
Posts: 10940 | Location: LondonReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Kalleh
posted Hide Post
Ahhh. A special use of fudge?

I posted this article in another thread, but it also is relevant to this thread, particularly the lying with statistics conversation.
 
Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata  
 

Wordcraft Home Page    Wordcraft Community Home Page    Forums  Hop To Forum Categories  Potpourri    figures lie and liars figure...

Copyright © 2002-12