"Plural of anecdote is data" (Ray Wolfinger)

[Fred Shapiro]

On Tue, 6 Jul 2004 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> Nelson W. Polsby PS, Vol. 17, No. 4. (Autumn, 1984), pp. 778-781. Pg.
> 779: Raymond Wolfinger's brilliant aphorism "the plural of anecdote is
> data" never inspired a better or more skilled researcher.

I e-mailed Wolfinger last year and got the following response from him:

"I said 'The plural of anecdote is data' some time in the 1969-70 academic
year while teaching a graduate seminar at Stanford.  The occasion was a
student's dismissal of a simple factual statement--by another student or
me--as a mere anecdote.  The quotation was my rejoinder.
Since then I have missed few opportunities to quote myself.  The only
appearance in print that I can remember is Nelson Polsby's accurate
quotation and attribution in an article in PS:  Political Science and
Politics in 1993; I believe it was in the first issue of the year."

I also e-mailed Polsby, who didn't know of any early printed occurrences.

What is interesting about this saying is that it seems to have morphed
into its opposite -- "Data is not the plural of anecdote" -- in some
people's minds.  Mark Mandel used it in this opposite sense in a private
e-mail to me, for example.

Fred Shapiro


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