Spotted a word new to me, though the quote indictes that it's at least 2+ decades old. From the Wall Street Journal of two days ago:

In 1985, when I left academia and began putting my physics training to work on Wall Street, I talked eagerly about options theory to anyone who would listen. One lunchtime, I turned to a colleague in the elevator and began to babble about "convexity," a mathematical property of options crucial to the Black-Scholes theory used in derivatives pricing. My friend clearly understood convexity, but he shuffled his feet uncomfortably and quickly changed the subject. "Hey, futures dropped more than a handle today!" he said, imitating a genuine bond trader. It didn't take me long to recognize the source of his discomfort: I had just outed him as a fellow quant. Except back then we practitioners of quantitative finance didn't refer to ourselves as quants. That's what "real businesspeople" -- traders, investment bankers, salespeople -- called us, somewhat pejoratively.

Well, the online AHD defines it that way (saying it's short for "quantitative"), though most dictionaries define "quant" as a "pole for propelling a barge" with the OED saying it goes back to the 1400s and deriving from the Latin contus, for boat-pole.

The OED has another definition for "quant" that I hadn't heard of: the spindles of a windmill, which was first cited in the OED from 1924.

Sounds to me like a term the Wife of bath used in her tale.

quote:

Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Sounds to me like a term the Wife of bath used in her tale.

Aha. That of course explains it all. The "real businesspeople" he refers to weren't calling them quants at all, that was just what they were hearing.

I expect the actual term was used by the quants to refer to the "businesspeople" as well.

OK, guys NOW you've made me have to admit my ignorance. Perhaps you've already guessed: the reason I pursue erudition among scholars of Eng lit [like you'all] even into [my] middle age is because I spent my college years on La Chanson de Roland instead of Beowulf, Gargantua and Pantagruel instead of Sir Gawain.

Now that I've made myself feel a little bit better... what do you mean by "quant" as a term of the Wife of Bath? (other than as the norman-english term 'quant' meaning when?)

While desperately trying to figure that out on my own, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Chaucer asked the question 'what do women want?' centuries before Freud.

p.s. wasn't Quant the inventor of the miniskirt

For, certeyn, olde dotard, by youre leve,
Ye shul have queynte right ynogh at eve.
He is to greet a nygard that wolde werne
A man to light a candle at his lanterne;
He shal have never the lasse light, pardee.
Have thou ynogh, thee thar nat pleyne thee.

Geoffrey Chaucer, Caterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath's Prologue, ll. 331-6.

For certainly, old dotard, by your leave,
You shall have cunt all right enough at eve.
He is too much a niggard who's so tight
That from his lantern he'll give none a light.
For he'll have never the less light, by gad;
Since you've enough, you need not be so sad.

A modern translation of the same passage.

Thanks, zmj, I was scrambling to find it! (The word, that is)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Asa Lovejoy>,

Well, you're better than I am, Bethree. I spent my time reading Goodman & Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics and Guyton's Textbook of Medical Physiology.

Let's just say that Chaucer wouldn't be considered very politically correct today!

Thanks for the translation & links, zmj. Tried to make my way thro the whole modern traslation you linked there, good grief! hadn't the patience. I supposed the "accelerated class" in my mid-60's h.s. got to read it unabridged. Luckily the hoi polloi were only required to wade through excerpts!

When we studied Eng Lit at school we were required to learn just the Prologue and Knight's Tale. It must have been one of the few set books where almost all of us read more than was necessary (the Miller's Tale and the Wife of Bath's Tale especially).

Back to the original point, I hear quant used to describe any computer science PhD working for an investment firm. I'm told at such places my education would allow me to fetch coffee.

I supported myself in grad school working as a quant for a company that created synthetic derivatives, but this was in Berkeley where the geeks outnumbered the traders and no one asked us to get them coffee. I understand the culture in NY is different.

The term probably doesn't predate the above-mentioned Black-Scholes model (1973) as it was the invention of Black-Scholes that drove the demand for mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists who could understand it and implement it.