[R] [OT] vernacular names for circular diagrams

Jean lobry lobry at biomserv.univ-lyon1.fr
Tue Dec 11 22:27:56 CET 2007


Dear useRs,

by a circular diagram representation I mean what you will get by entering
this at your R promt:

pie(1:5)

Nice to have R as a lingua franca :-)

The folowing quote is from page 360 in this very interesting paper:

@article{SpenceI2005,
     title = {No Humble Pie: The Origins and Usage of a Statistical Chart},
     author = {Spence, I.},
     journal = {Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics},
     volume = {30},
     pages = {353-368},
     year = {2005}
}

QUOTE
Like us, the French employ a gastronomical metaphor when
they refer to Playfair's pie chart, but they have preferred
instead to invoke the name of the wonderful round soft
cheese from Normandy - the camembert. When I spent 4 months
in Paris a few years ago, a friend invited my wife and me to
lunch with her elderly father who lives in Rouen, Normandy,
about an hour North of Paris. Her father inquired -
coincidentally during the cheese course - what work I was
doing in Paris; I replied that I was researching the
activities of a Scot, William Playfair, during the
revolutionary period. I told him that Playfair had invented
several statistical graphs, including the pie chart, which I
referred to, in French, as <<le camembert.>> After a stunned
silence of perhaps a couple of seconds, the distinguished
elderly gentleman looked me in the eye and exclaimed, <<Mon
Dieu ! Notre camembert?>>
UNQUOTE

So, I'm just curious: how do you refer in your own language to
this kind of graphic? How do you call it?

Best,

Jean

-- 
Jean R. Lobry            (lobry at biomserv.univ-lyon1.fr)
Laboratoire BBE-CNRS-UMR-5558, Univ. C. Bernard - LYON I,
43 Bd 11/11/1918, F-69622 VILLEURBANNE CEDEX, FRANCE
allo  : +33 472 43 27 56     fax    : +33 472 43 13 88
http://pbil.univ-lyon1.fr/members/lobry/



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