[R] re: lines(lowess())

[Spencer Graves]

Dear Peter: 

      English is almost certainly one of the supreme bastard languages 
on the face of the earth.  The ancient Celtic (or whatever it was) was 
contaminated by Latin roughly 2,000 years ago and then by the 
Anglo-Saxon invasion from Schleswig-Holstein and Saxony, just south of 
modern Denmark, beginning in the fifth century AD, and then by the 
Norman conquest in 1066, following which the King's English was French.  
The Norman conquest was led by William the Conqueror, Guillaume le 
Batard, as the French say.  I am close to 3/4 British plus 1/4 German.  
A Danish friend ensures me he knows the source of my flaming red hair 
(what's left of it.)  There is strength in diversity (or at least that's 
what I tell myself). 

      Best Wishes,
      Spencer Graves

Peter Dalgaard wrote:

>Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at pdf.com> writes:
>
>  
>
>>      Did you try Google?  For me just now, Google produced "about
>>9,800" hits, the first 10 of which seemed to be relevant;  I didn't
>>look beyond that.  Lowess (sometimes called "loess") is a relatively
>>old technique and has been documented in many places.  Many books on
>>"exploratory data analysis" discuss it.     hope this helps.  spencer
>>graves
>>    
>>
>
>Incidentally, "lowess" is a misunderstanding. "Loess" is a
>transcription of Hungarian "Löss" (with o-diaeresis or possibly the
>Hungarian accent that is like a double grave accent). I.e. it's a one
>syllable word where the vowel got transcribed as an oe ligature as in
>"hors d'oeuvre". However people who didn't know pronounced it lo-ess,
>and... 
>
>The thing itself is a kind of silt that gets carried by the wind,
>forming a sediment layer which smooths the underlying rock surface.
>Primary example is the Great Hungarian Plains (puszta), but there are
>also Loess Hills in Iowa.
>
>Undoubtedly, some guy from .hu will correct me Real Soon Now...
>
>  
>