Public Service Announcement From Statistics Canada. In order to clarify common communication we have studied Canadian Usage of certain phrases and have compiled the following list of their actual values. 1 One 2 Couple 3 Few 4-5 Handful 6-10 Several 11-20 A bunch 24-60 Dozens 20-50 Lots 40-80 Piles 70-1000 Many 75-90 More than you can shake a stick at 50-150 Heap 150-250 Whoppin Heap 100-300 Truckload 200-250 Tons 300+ Boatload 500+ Shitload 600-900 Beaucoup Shitload 1000+ Whole Fucking Shitload Three statisticians are out on a duck hunt. They see a duck, and the first draws a bead, squeezes the trigger and misses! The slug is a foot in front of the duck. The second statistician draws a bead on the same duck, squeezes, and misses! A foot behind the duck. The third statistician jumps up and down all excited and screams, "We got it!" How do you tell that you are in the hands of the Mathematical Mafia? They make you an offer that you can't understand. I have always been told that old statisticians do not fade away, but rather are "broken down by age and sex". Did you hear the one about the statistician? Probably.... In earlier times, they had no statistics, and so they had to fall back on lies. - STEPHEN LEACOCK You know how dumb the average guy is? Well, by definition, half of them are even dumber than that. -- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs What is the definition of a statistician? Someone who doesn't have the personality to be an accountant. Did you hear about the Statistician that couldn't get laid? He decided a simulation was good enough. "She was only the statistician's daughter, but she knew all the standard deviations." A stats major was completely hung over the day of his final exam. It was a True/False test, so he decided to flip a coin for the answers. The stats professor watched the student the entire two hours as he was flipping the coin...writing the answer...flipping the coin...writing the answer. At the end of the two hours, everyone else had left the final except for the one student. The professor walks up to his desk and interrupts the student, saying, "Listen, I have seen that you did not study for this statistics test, you didn't even open the exam. If you are just flipping a coin for your answer, what is taking you so long? The student replies bitterly (as he is still flipping the coin), "Shhh! I'm still checking my answers!" The average statistician is just plain mean. Figures won't lie, but liars can figure. Fletcher Knebel (1911- ) American author and journalist There are no facts, only interpretations. Frederick Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher How far would have Moses gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt? Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) There are two kind of statistics, the kind you look up, and the kind you make up. Rex Stout (1886-1975) A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion, the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give the data authenticity. Norman R. Augustine (1935- ) A theory has only the alternative of being wrong. A model has a third possibility - it might be right but irrelevant. Manfred Eigen (1927- ) Statistics are like a bikini - what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. - Aaron Levenstein Statistics in the hands of an engineer are like a lamp post to a drunk--they're used more for support than illumination. -- Bill Sangster, Dean of Engineering, Georgia Tech The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you. Rita Mae Brown Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than on all other days of the year put together. This proves, by the numbers left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so. Mark Twain (1835-1910) Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. Mark Twain (1835-1910) Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive. Wallace Irwin (1875-1959) Numbers are like people; torture them enough and they'll tell you anything. 50% of the citizens of this country have a below average understanding of statistics. Statistical Analysis: Mysterious, sometimes bizarre, manipulations performed upon the collected data of an experiment in order to obscure the fact that the results have no generalizable meaning for humanity. Commonly, computers are used, lending an additional aura of unreality to the proceedings. |
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