[R] [OT] "normal" (as in "Guassian")

[Rogers, James A [PGRD Groton]]

As someone of partly French heritage, I would also ask how this
distribution came to be called "Gaussian". It seems very unfair to de
Moivre, who discovered the distribution at least half a century earlier.
:-)


--Jim Rogers 


On Mar 2, 2008, at 7:33 AM, (Ted Harding) 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. 
>