Certain Uncorrelated Nonparametric Test Statistics
June 2, 2022 1:55 AM Subscribe
Searching 32 million academic papers for obscene acronyms hidden in the titles [CW: obscene acronyms]
When I was young in Virginia, there was much excitement when Fredericksburg got a bus system. A significant popular movement arose championing the name "Fredericksburg Area Rapid Transit." The city just named it "Fred" because they were weak cowards and history will forget their bloodline.
posted by Scattercat at 2:53 AM on June 2, 2022 [27 favorites]
posted by Scattercat at 2:53 AM on June 2, 2022 [27 favorites]
So this doesn't work in English, but some years ago, when the Dutch Reformed Church actually made some half hearted motions in the direction of stating that Apartheid was maybe a bit problematic, there was a splinter group that held to the good old values. They called themselves the Conservative Afrikaans Church. In Afrikaans, that's the Konservatiewe Afrikaanse Kerk.
24 hours after the initial press announcement they changed their name. Kak means "shit" in Afrikaans. We really should have kept that particular newspaper clipping.
posted by Zumbador at 3:01 AM on June 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
24 hours after the initial press announcement they changed their name. Kak means "shit" in Afrikaans. We really should have kept that particular newspaper clipping.
posted by Zumbador at 3:01 AM on June 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
Let us never forget the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party
posted by saturday_morning at 5:06 AM on June 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by saturday_morning at 5:06 AM on June 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
Lol at the acronym in the paper's subtitle.
posted by saladin at 5:32 AM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by saladin at 5:32 AM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
South Lake Union Trolley
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:36 AM on June 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:36 AM on June 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
Truly the world is an amazing place: one can obtain for their perusal the sum total of millions of hours of scientific dedication, rigor and creativity...
Wait, you're doing what with it?!
(Also, thank you for introducing me to the term "spurious hermaphroditism", which is almost a curse in itself.)
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 6:09 AM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
Wait, you're doing what with it?!
(Also, thank you for introducing me to the term "spurious hermaphroditism", which is almost a curse in itself.)
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 6:09 AM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
or a username
posted by glonous keming at 6:20 AM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 6:20 AM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Oh God, I'm cracking up over here.
It does not speak well of me that I am this old, and yet this immature.
posted by Naberius at 6:23 AM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
It does not speak well of me that I am this old, and yet this immature.
posted by Naberius at 6:23 AM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Did anyone notice that the author's name, Rob Manuel, is an anagram for "lean rim job"?
posted by AlSweigart at 6:44 AM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by AlSweigart at 6:44 AM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
In 2010, the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in Baltimore changed its name to Notre Dame of Maryland University. Moving to university status made sense given that the school's traditional all-women Catholic undergraduate program had expanded to include coed graduate programs. Including "of Maryland" certainly helps distinguish the school from the much larger and more well-known University of Notre Dame in Indiana, too. I've always wondered if the acronym for the original name had anything to do with the change, though...
posted by cheapskatebay at 7:07 AM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by cheapskatebay at 7:07 AM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
Surely there must be FECKs out there?
posted by humbug at 8:41 AM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by humbug at 8:41 AM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Springfield Heights Institute of Technology
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 9:27 AM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 9:27 AM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Every time I remember it exists, I am angry that the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken is not the Stevens Hoboken etc etc.
posted by moonmilk at 9:44 AM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by moonmilk at 9:44 AM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
A goal of a biochemistry professor I know is to use the word "envaginate" in a scientific paper. Shouldn't be a stretch for some protein/substrate interactions.
posted by 445supermag at 11:59 AM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by 445supermag at 11:59 AM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Maybe I'm naive, but the only one of the ones listed in the article I'm convinced was definitely on purpose was "Colo-Rectal-Anal Physiology". The rest seem more like happy accidents to me.
posted by biogeo at 12:11 PM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 12:11 PM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
When I was young in Virginia, there was much excitement when Fredericksburg got a bus system. A significant popular movement arose championing the name "Fredericksburg Area Rapid Transit." The city just named it "Fred" because they were weak cowards and history will forget their bloodline.
Are you sure that's not an urban legend? I heard the same thing about calling the San Francisco bus system "Frisco Area Rapid Transit," but nobody who actually lives in S.F. calls it "Frisco." So that definitely sounds bogus to me.
posted by jonp72 at 3:52 PM on June 2, 2022
Are you sure that's not an urban legend? I heard the same thing about calling the San Francisco bus system "Frisco Area Rapid Transit," but nobody who actually lives in S.F. calls it "Frisco." So that definitely sounds bogus to me.
posted by jonp72 at 3:52 PM on June 2, 2022
Many years ago, some friends and I spent a summer between years of undergrad working on a research project involving Bluetooth and cell phones. Think "Dropbox, but before everything was on the internet." We were asked to present our work at a small conference, at which point the real work began: backronyming the project name into something clever. We eventually landed on "Bluetooth automatic data acquisition & synchronization service," and made sure the capital letters on the poster really popped.
To my knowledge, no one ever spotted the acronym, including the supervising professor. I'm glad someone's out there looking for them, though.
posted by Mayor West at 8:06 PM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
To my knowledge, no one ever spotted the acronym, including the supervising professor. I'm glad someone's out there looking for them, though.
posted by Mayor West at 8:06 PM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is my favorite scientific paper featuring naughty acronyms, though they're far from hidden:
Everything is awesome: Don't forget the Lego
Read into the Methods section.
posted by rachaelfaith at 9:47 PM on June 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
Everything is awesome: Don't forget the Lego
Read into the Methods section.
posted by rachaelfaith at 9:47 PM on June 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
rachaelfaith: that's the best scientific study ever
posted by chavenet at 12:32 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by chavenet at 12:32 AM on June 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
I came for the nonparametric test statistics, but I stayed for the anecdotal FARTs.
cheapskatebay, when I lived in Baltimore, the College of Notre Dame of Maryland was still mainly a women's college, and its students were referred to as "CONDOM girls."
A colleague in grad school reverse engineered his research so that the method in his thesis could be named for the "Dr. Evil" character from Austin Powers. I think it only got as far as "D R EVAL" or maybe even "DR 3VAL" or something that didn't rhyme but was close enough for all of us to laugh our fool heads off.
A similarly mature approach to work came in my first job at a bank where we had to pull together a wide variety of data sources so that all of the reporting came from "one version of the truth"... my coworker pushed very hard to call the resulting system "Multivariate Information and Statistical System" or something similar, so that when somebody asked "where'd you get these numbers?" the answer would be "I pulled them out of MIASS."
posted by adekllny at 10:02 AM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
cheapskatebay, when I lived in Baltimore, the College of Notre Dame of Maryland was still mainly a women's college, and its students were referred to as "CONDOM girls."
A colleague in grad school reverse engineered his research so that the method in his thesis could be named for the "Dr. Evil" character from Austin Powers. I think it only got as far as "D R EVAL" or maybe even "DR 3VAL" or something that didn't rhyme but was close enough for all of us to laugh our fool heads off.
A similarly mature approach to work came in my first job at a bank where we had to pull together a wide variety of data sources so that all of the reporting came from "one version of the truth"... my coworker pushed very hard to call the resulting system "Multivariate Information and Statistical System" or something similar, so that when somebody asked "where'd you get these numbers?" the answer would be "I pulled them out of MIASS."
posted by adekllny at 10:02 AM on June 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
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For 30+ years the binfo community has been quietly happy about the annotation for a gene in E.coli's fucose operon. On the OP, with a hit rate of 80,000/32,000,000 there needs to be a control: search for some nice kind four lett word and see if those clock the same number of hits as title acronyms .
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:38 AM on June 2, 2022 [9 favorites]