
Choosing words to clearly describe data - polm23
http://blog.arria.com/choosing-words-to-describe-data
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NovemberWhiskey
There's a classic example of this with the way the National Weather Service
provides forecasts of the likelihood of severe storms.

Put the following into increasing order of likelihood: High, Slight, Moderate,
Enhanced, Marginal

When surveyed, members of the general public most commonly sorted them:
Slight, Marginal, Moderate, Enhanced, High.

Whereas the NWS intends: Marginal, Slight, Enhanced, Moderate, High.

The WaPo has an article about it from a few weeks ago.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/06/10/storm-
pred...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/06/10/storm-prediction-
center-risk-categories/)

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andreareina
Seems I'm in the middle, I'd have gone Marginal, Slight, Moderate, Enhanced,
High. I wonder what's the thinking that puts Slight < Marginal.

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andreareina
> Berry also pointed out that if the word “common” is used to indicate a 1-10%
> chance of a nasty side effect (which is recommended usage in the EU for
> medication leaflets), but a patient thinks that “common” means a 50% chance
> (which is how many of Berry’s subjects interpreted the word), then the
> patient might refuse to take the medication because of this
> misunderstanding.

1-10% chance of a nasty side-effect is high. So yeah, I'd say "common" is
appropriate.

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adatavizguy
I read the title and thought this article might have more to do with my
spending 10 minutes finding the perfect variable name.

