Thanks, Katherine! Now I wonder what, in particular, Peirce might have had in mind (he was a particularly sharp philosophical thinker, and might be expected to pay attention to the "semantic baggage" of what he said).
I'm also enjoying the other delightful "OT" (= "On Tangent") responses that my query has prompted! Best wishes to all, Ted. On 02-Mar-08 21:19:24, Katharine Mullen wrote: > There is some information and references regarding the name 'normal' in > the internet article 'Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of > Mathematics (N)', http://members.aol.com/jeff570/n.html, by John > Aldrich. > > It contains the comment, "Galton does not explain why he uses the term > "normal" but the sense of conforming to a norm ( = 'A standard, model, > pattern, type.' (OED)) seems implied." > > On Sun, 2 Mar 2008 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> Hi Folks, >> Apologies to anyone who'd prefer not to see this query >> on this list; but I'm asking because it is probably the >> forum where I'm most likely to get a good answer! >> >> I'm interested in the provenance of the name "normal >> distribution" (for what I'd really prefer to call the >> "Gaussian" distribution). >> >> According to Wikipedia, "The name "normal distribution" >> was coined independently by Charles S. Peirce, Francis >> Galton and Wilhelm Lexis around 1875." >> >> So be it, if that was the case -- but I would like to >> know why they chose the name "normal": what did they >> intend to convey? >> >> As background: I'm reflecting a bit on the usage in >> statistics of "everyday language" as techincal terms, >> as in "significantly different". This, for instance, >> is likely to be misunderstood by the general publidc >> when they encounter statements in the media. >> >> Likewise, "normally distributed" would probably be >> interpreted as "distributed in the way one would >> normally expect" or, perhaps, "there was nothing >> unusual about the distribution." >> >> Comments welcome! >> With thanks, >> Ted. >> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------- >> E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 >> Date: 02-Mar-08 Time: 13:04:17 >> ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help@r-project.org mailing list >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >> PLEASE do read the posting guide >> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >> > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 02-Mar-08 Time: 21:52:20 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------ ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.