Letters to the Editor SpecGram Vol CXCI, No 1 Contents Linguimericks, Etc.—Book ८७

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Not a wire news service but still more reliable than most newspapers.

Linguists Admit Not Knowing What p Values Mean, Use Them Anyway

In what must be the least surprising press release since the last study on humanities hiring rates, a broad coalition of linguists from 17 countries and 54 departments has, at last, admitted that none of them have a clue what p values actually mean. After random guesses from a statistically insignificant sample, the null knowledge hypothesis could not be dismissed and Prof Stu Dent of Two-Tail Campus of ANOVA University had this to say:

“Look, if journal editors and funders ask for the darn things, who am I to query why a paper on the etymology of the phrase ‘cop-out’ has to involve running some stat tests in Excel. So long as we can have 95% confidence of getting tenure, it’s all good, right?”

The Worldwide Tribe of Computational Linguists have asked us to remind readers that misusing statistics is actually their prerogative.

Letters to the Editor
Linguimericks, Etc.Book ८७
SpecGram Vol CXCI, No 1 Contents