{"id":48251,"date":"2020-08-07T14:38:24","date_gmt":"2020-08-07T13:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=48251"},"modified":"2020-08-14T12:38:27","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T11:38:27","slug":"jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-anecdata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2020\/08\/07\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-anecdata\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Anecdata"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I <\/span>wrote<\/span><\/a> in January of this year, the <\/span>Oxford English Dictionary<\/span><\/i> (<\/span>OED<\/span><\/i>) is updated every three months (\u201con a quarterly basis\u201d <\/span>as they put it<\/span><\/a>\u2014they mean \u201cquarterly\u201d). Two recent updates, in April and June, have, not surprisingly, been influenced by the current pandemic. Having had my attention unexpectedly diverted, I am now catching up with the March updates. The list comprises 584 entries, of which there are, as ever, four categories:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Words that are completely new to the dictionary<\/i><\/b> This list (147 entries) starts with \u201cambient lighting\u201d (first recorded in 1947) and ends with \u201ctraversi\u00e8re\u201d (1740), \u201ca transverse flute\u201d.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. New sub-entries<\/i><\/b> Compound words or phrases newly included under other headwords (197 entries). These go from \u201cAmbrosian chant\u201d (1740), \u201cA type of liturgical plainchant, distinct from Gregorian\u201d, to \u201cwoolly pully\u201d, \u201ca woollen pullover sweater (1978).<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. New senses of old words<\/i><\/b> This list (222 entries) starts with \u201cambidextral\u201d (1665), \u201ccharacterized by double-dealing, or a wish to please two opposing parties\u201d and ends with \u201ctravois\u201d (1879), previously meaning \u201ca load-bearing frame pulled like a sled\u201d and now also \u201cIn extended use: any similar device used to move a load by dragging; esp. a stretcher or litter for transporting the sick or wounded, typically pulled by a horse or mule\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Additions to unrevised entries<\/i><\/b> New senses, compound words, or phrases that were already included as draft entries appended to the end of existing entries, now fully incorporated (18 entries). These are also included in the other categories.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In January\u2019s list a striking number of words related to Jews and Judaism and words derived from Yiddish, in all 71 (13%) of the entries. March\u2019s list contains 78 entries (13%) related to Christ, christening, Christianity, Christmas, or Jesus, plus a handful of other religious terms, such as nomen sacrum, theonomous, and non-Trinitarian; 63 entries involve birth or being born; and one entry combines Christianity and birth\u2014born-again.<\/span><\/p>\n

    In January I found only four medical terms among the new entries: Henle, mouth stick, Jewish stone, and Jewish penicillin. The new list includes 21 (Table 1).<\/span><\/p>\n

    Table 1.<\/b> Medical entries in the March list of additions to the <\/span>Oxford English Dictionary<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    One new entry took my eye: \u201canecdata\u201d, a portmanteau word, from anecdote + data. It\u2019s defined in the <\/span>OED<\/span><\/i> as \u201cInformation or evidence based on reports of individual cases rather than systematic research or analysis; anecdotal evidence\u201d and tagged as \u201cFrequently <\/span>humorous<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>depreciative<\/span><\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    Anecdotal reports have typically been regarded as evidentially the lowest of the low, barring expert opinion and mechanistic reasoning, neither of which is a form of evidence at all. Nevertheless, I have <\/span>argued<\/span><\/a>, thinking about adverse drug reactions and interactions, that there are several important reasons for publishing anecdotes (Box 1).<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    The word anecdote comes from the Greek word \u1f00\u03bd\u03ad\u03ba\u03b4\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, unpublished, literally not-out-given (an-ek-dotos). Originally (first citation 1649) the word was used in the neuter plural, anecdota, \u201csecret, private, or hitherto unpublished narratives or details of history\u201d (<\/span>OED<\/span><\/i>).<\/span><\/p>\n

    When the sixth century gossip Procopius wrote his scurrilous memoirs of life at the court of the Roman Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora, he called them \u201cAnekdota\u201d, which is sometimes translated as \u201cSecret Histories\u201d, but which might be better rendered as \u201cUnpublished Gossip\u201d. The memoirs were probably eventually published only after Procopius had died, and certainly not in Justinian\u2019s lifetime.<\/span><\/p>\n

    And so, anecdotes, which were originally unpublished, and indeed sometimes unpublishable, became gossipy stories ripe for circulation, and hence any stories, scandalous or not. An anekdotos was also a secret remedy. Perhaps one that had a lot of adverse effects?<\/span><\/p>\n

    The <\/span>OED<\/span><\/i> gives the earliest citation of \u201canecdata\u201d from 1989 (Figure 1). There appear to be antedatings of this (Figure 2), but these turn out to be misprints for \u201canecdota\u201d. More difficult to spot, but probably a misprint too, is the example shown in Figure 3.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Figure 1.<\/b> The earliest instance of the word \u201canecdata\u201d recorded in the OED (<\/span>Michigan Law Review<\/span><\/i> 1989; 87(8): 2073-98); footnote 3 reads \u201cI owe the phrase to Don Herzog who has used it in conversation\u201d; <\/span>Herzog<\/span><\/a> is Edson R. Sunderland Professor of Law at Michigan<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Figure 2.<\/b> Two instances of \u201cAnecdata\u201d as a misprint for \u201cAnecdota\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    Top: From a paper in the <\/span>Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature<\/span><\/i> 1950\/1951; 53: 1-247, titled \u201cLagore Crannog: An Irish Royal Residence of the 7th to 10th Centuries A.D\u201d; The <\/span>Anecdota Oxoniensia<\/span><\/a> is a collection of \u201ctexts, documents, and extracts chiefly from manuscripts in the Bodleian and other Oxford libraries\u201d, published in several volumes from 1882.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Bottom: From <\/span>In Politics and Culture in Early Modern Europe. Essays in Honor of H G Koenigsberger<\/span><\/i>. Edited by Phyllis Mack and Margaret C Jacob. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987: 227; <\/span>Anecdota Ughelliana<\/span><\/i> is the title of the volume that \u201cthe Venetian scholar\u201d Nicolo Coleti added to Ferdinando Ughelli\u2019s nine volumes of <\/span>Italia sacra sive de episcopis Italae<\/span><\/i>; Ughelli (1595\u20131670) was an Italian Cistercian monk<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    Figure 3.<\/b> Is this an early instance of \u201canecdata\u201d or a misprint for \u201canecdota\u201d? Probably the latter; it comes from an article by Jack Antelyes in <\/span>Modern Veterinary Practice<\/span><\/i> 1983; 64(1-6): 75; the two paragraphs of text surrounding the heading read:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u201cIn human medicine today, patients frequently complain about unnecessary and expensive tests. On the other hand, physicians claim these tests to be necessary, and offer plenty of scary rationalizations to justify them. Many observers agree, however, that the real, underlying reason behind the plethora of testing is to defend doctors against an epidemic of litigation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u201cWhile many believe this institution of defensive medicine to be a new phenomenon, in fact, it may even be older than recorded history. While we practice defensively today to prevent criticism, to prevent lawsuits and perhaps to avoid a possible suspension of license, in halcyon times the physician was often in peril of losing his life, should his diagnosis, treatment and prognosis be inaccurate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    So, is \u201canecdata\u201d singular or plural? The non-prescriptive <\/span>OED<\/span><\/i> says that it can be both\u2014that\u2019s how people use the word. \u201cData\u201d is also used in both ways, but I have previously <\/span>argued<\/span><\/a> that the evidence from its scientific uses is strongly in favour of plurality. And Ray Wolfinger\u2019s <\/span>saying<\/span><\/a> that the plural of anecdote is data perhaps suggests that the plural is actually anecdata.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Jeffrey Aronson<\/strong>\u00a0is a clinical pharmacologist, working in the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine in Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. He is also president emeritus of the British Pharmacological Society.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

    Competing interests:<\/strong> None declared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n

    This week’s interesting integer: 286<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \u2022 <\/strong><\/b>Like <\/span>285<\/span><\/a>, 286 is the sum of different strings of integers, a quite polite number<\/span>
    \n\u25cb<\/span> four consecutive integers: 70 + 71 + 72 + 74<\/span>
    \n\u25cb<\/span> 11 consecutive integers: 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25 + 26 + 27 + 28 + 29 + 30 + 31<\/span>
    \n\u25cb<\/span> 13 consecutive integers: 16 + 17 + 18 + 19 + 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25 + 26 + 27 + 28<\/span>
    \n\u25cb<\/span> five consecutive non-primes: 55 + 56 + 57 + 58 + 60<\/span>
    \n\u25cb<\/span> three consecutive square pyramidal numbers (see <\/span>    Interesting integer 285<\/span><\/a>): 55 + 91 + 140<\/span>
    \n\u25cb<\/span> the first 11 triangular numbers, from T1<\/sub> to T11<\/sub>: 1 + 3 + 6 + 10 + 15 + 21 + 28 + 36 + 45 + 55 + 66; this makes it the 11th triangular pyramidal (tetrahedral) number, each having the form n(n + 1)(n + 2)\/6; here is 286, in the shape of a triangular pyramid<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>
    \n\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>Like <\/span>    285<\/span><\/a>, 286 is a sphenic number, the product of three distinct primes, 2 \u00d7 11 \u00d7 13; it is therefore equal to the volume of a cuboid with sides of those lengths.<\/span>
    \n\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>286 is divisible by the sum of its prime factors, 26.<\/span>
    \n\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>26 also concatenates the first and last digits of 286 and divides it; such integers as 286 are called gapful numbers<\/span>
    \n\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>The difference between 286 and the product of its digits, 96, is 190, a triangular number (T19<\/sub>).<\/span>
    \n\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>The divisors of 286 are 1, 2, 11, 13, 22, 26, 143, and 286; the average of these is an integer, 63; this makes 286 an arithmetic number.<\/span>
    \n\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>286 is the 11<\/span>th<\/span> heptagonal number, numbers that have the form n(5n \u2013 3)\/2<\/span>
    \n\u2022 <\/strong><\/b>286 is the perimeter of a Pythagorean triangle with integral sides, 44, 117, and 125<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As I wrote in January of this year, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is updated every three months (\u201con a quarterly basis\u201d as they put it\u2014they mean \u201cquarterly\u201d). Two recent […]<\/p>\n

    More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5762],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jeff-aronsons-words"],"yoast_head":"\nJeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Anecdata - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2020\/08\/07\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-anecdata\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . 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