inference (vb)

[Mark Mandel]

Not in OED, although the noun "inferencer", def. "One who draws an
inference.", is listed with the flag "nonce-wd." The sole cite is from
1738.

raw ghits (all specified with quotation marks):
about 4,640 for "inferenced"
about 216,000 for "inferencing"

about 10,900 for "inferencer"
about 1,190 for "inferencers"

Current uses seem to be mostly in I.T. --

1.  inferencers, which are algorithms for computing ( perhaps
approximately) marginal distributions over nodes in the model
(mallet.cs.umass.edu/api/cc/mallet/grmm/inference/package-use.html)

2. This is my first experience with a type-inferenced imperative
language. (lovehateubuntu.blogspot.com/2008/05/adventures-in-scala-part-ii.html)


But not all. These are = the corresponding forms of "infer" AFAICT:

3. Some adults are much better at inferring than others, but children
are such natural inferencers that is hardly takes long until they
thinking about their ...
(blogs.proteacher.net/discussions/showthread.php?t=31615)

4. I decided to create a unit about inferencing because this is an
area I struggled with last year and was not really pleased with how I
pulled it all together ...
(www.mandygregory.com/Inferencing_mini_lessons.htm -- developing
classroom lessons for elementary school teaching)


Note that #3 has gerund "inferring" and agent noun "inferencer" in the
same sentence, in direct contrast. This may be motivated by avoiding
the /'@r at r/ sequence. So...

about 97,800 for "infered", including a number of typoes for "infrared"
about 16,400,000 for "inferred"

about 42,200 for "infering"
about 2,320,000 for "inferring"

about 31,500 for "inferer"
about 6,150 for "inferrer"
65 for "inferers"
   (A significant proportion of "inferer(s)" hits are typoes for
"interferer(s)".)
about 971 for "inferrers"

These are both I.T. and human, but my subjective impression is that
"infer(r)er(s)" has a much higher proportion of human to IT references
than does "inferencer(s)". That would be expectable if the latter form
and/or the verb "inference" was used for early development of this
technology: it would have spread quickly within the IT community,
while the simpler form is probably (W.A.G.) formed productively by
most of its users.

5. Another possibility, for the recursive inferer, is to compute a ...
The way the recursive inferer handles this is to keep two separate
scores: a similarity ... (nlp.stanford.edu/projects/infer/primer.html)

6. The inferer himself may have such doubt or some one else may raise
it. ... So when the inferer has the cognition of the relation of
vyapti he already knows ...
(www.philosophy-ju.org/research_paper/paper_srilekha8.htm)

As usual, the ghits should be taken with a tsp. of salt. F'rex, this
one doesn't have the search word at all:

7. Infering means to take what you know and make a guess. Read the
following situations and pick which answer you could infer.
(www.quia.com/pop/43335.html)

Mark Mandel

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