So where did the word ‘statistics’ come from?
Yes, the book about the history of statistics has been written, in case you were wondering. A History of Statistics in New Zealand was published in 1999, with funding from the New Zealand Statistical Association and the Lotteries Commission of New Zealand. H S (Stan) Roberts edited the history, and wrote substantial sections. It’s now available for free download here – the usual caveats about attribution apply. And it opens by tracing the history and usage of the word statistics:
“Statistics”, like most words, is continually changing its meaning. In order to find the meaning of a word we tend to reach for a dictionary, but dictionaries do not so much “define” the meanings of words, but rather give their current usages, together with examples. Following are examples relating to statistics taken from the 1933 Oxford English Dictionary (13 Vols). Note that in each entry the date indicates the first usage found.
Statism: Subservience to political expediency in religious matters. 1609 – “Religion turned into Statisme will soon prooue Atheisme.”
Statist: One skilled in state affairs, one having political knowledge, power, or influence; a politician, statesman. Very common in 17th c. 1584 – “When he plais the Statist, wringing veri unlukkili some of Machiavels Avioxmes to serve his Purpos then indeed; then he tryumphes.”
Statistical: 1. Of, or pertaining to statistics, consisting or founded on collections of numerical facts, esp. with reference to economic, sanitary, and vital conditions. 1787 “The work (by Zimmerman) before us is properly statistical. It consists of different tables, containing a general comparative view of the forces, the government, the extent and population of the different kingdoms of Europe.” 2: Of a writer, etc: Dealing with statistics. 1787 – “Some respectable statistical writers.”
Statistician: One versed or engaged in collecting and tabulating statistics. 1825 – “The object of the statistician is to describe the condition of a particular country at a particular period.”
Statistics: In early use, that branch of political science, dealing with the collection, classification, and discussion of facts (especially of a numerical kind), bearing on the condition of a state or community. In recent use, the department of study that has for its object the collection and arrangement of numerical facts or data, whether relating to human affairs or to natural phenomena. 1787 – Zimmerman – “This science distinguished by the newly-coined name of Statistics, is become a favourite in Germany.”
Statistic: The earliest known occurrence of the word seems to be in the title of the satirical work “Microscopium Statisticum”, by Helenus Politanus, Frankfort (1672). Here the sense is prob. “pertaining to statists or to statecraft”.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1976) gives us two modern usages.
Statistics: 1. Numerical facts systematically collected 2: Science of collecting, classifying and using statistics. The first verse of a poem composed in 1799 by William Wordsworth, and entitled, “A Poet’s Epitaph”, successfully clarifies this difficult matter.
Art thou a Statist in the van
Of public conflicts trained and bred?
First learn to love one living man;
Then may’st thou think upon the dead.
Atakohu Middleton is an Auckland journalist with a keen interest in the way the media uses/abuses data. She happens to be married to a statistician. See all posts by Atakohu Middleton »
And because the world has changed fundamentally since last century, we can also search Google ngrams and Google Books for early uses. Such as
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=statistical%2Cstatistics%2C+statistician&year_start=1600&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cstatistical%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cstatistics%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cstatistician%3B%2Cc0
While results include a number of OCR errors (particular with outliers causes by mistaking 1953 as 1753 and similar) we can find things like the 1784 “Statistical Estimates of the Materials of Brewing”
8 years ago
And a good quote from 1830 – “A letter to the earl of Wilton, on the commutation of existing taxes for a graduated property and income tax; connecting therewith, a plan of parliamentary reform, by an Englishman, Volume 2” –
I should like to have some good statistician at my elbow, to estimate for me, the hundreds of thousands who, by honest employment, would earn additional means to supply additional wants; and, if he could, to balance the account, by the numbers of talented and industrious fellow countrymen, expatriated in the spirit of miserable expediency, and the more miserable objects who receive their weekly, scanty dole, through the parish overseers.
Prior to that (1810s-1820s) statistician seems to have been fairly synonymous with statist (if with a quantitative bent, for example describing Malthus as a statistician), but I get the impression the cross-over came from people who tabulated election results and kept track of electors.
That said I also found (via google) an 1801 reference to “Professor Sprengel, the celebrated statistician, is the editor of the collection which appears at Weimar” and this seems to be referring to the botanist Kurt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel who seems to have no statist associations. This makes sense given the rise of the terms statistics in Germany in the late 1700s.
8 years ago