"...% of statistics are made up on the spot"

[Stephen Goranson]

Here is a minor comment on a minor subject. Add the disclaimer that I know
that memory can be mistaken. (If there are pre-1990 citations, I'll be
mistaken.) And, this is not a case of origins that matters a lot to me
(unlike, say, "Essenes," from a Hebrew root, 'asah, attested in some Qumran
mss in self-designation; you may have noticed news articles attempting, with
poor reason, to separate Qumran and Essenes).

Nonetheless, I do think that I made up this phrase; I used it in several
classes, as a joke, but also to see if they were paying attention. In the
1990s, at Duke, NC State, UNC-Wilmington and Chapel Hill, Meredith, Wake
Forest--that's where I taught, though my use may have been only at the first
three of them. It was picked up, for some reason, on a Duke student election
flyer.

I mention this because I heard Geoff Nunberg on "Fresh Air" yesterday. He used
a version, saying something like: ...the well-known fact that 88.2% of all
statistics are made up on the spot. I used to say (most of the time) 42.7%,
and then "correct" to 47.2%, (or vice versa), of all statistics are made up on
the spot.

Stephen Goranson