[Phys-L] Re: Charts or Graphs, and other Excel stuff

[jsd at AV8N.COM (John Denker)]

Michael Edmiston wrote:
>   I am specifically criticizing the wording in Excel,

A message from the criminals' rights department:

The Beast of Redmond is not to blame for the chart/graph issue.

> Either Edmiston is wrong, or scientists in
> general are wrong.

Neither.  It's just that correct usage is context-dependent.  Always
has been, always will be.

The business community has been using the word "chart" as a catch-all
for longer than Microsoft has existed.  Things scientists would call
"slides" or "foils" for the overhead projector are commonly called
"charts" in the business community -- even when they contain nothing
but words -- and have been for decades.  I conjecture that the term
may be distantly derived from "flip charts" which were the standard mode
of communication before projectors became common.

-- As a side light:  A road-map is a map.  A sectional aeronautical chart
is a chart ... even though this map and this chart are nearly identical
in form and function.  I have to persuade student pilots to use the
word "chart".

Correct usage is context dependent.

-- As another huge category of examples:  color names are notoriously
context dependent.  The shade that is "cyan" in the pressroom is
"blue" in the clothing store.

-- We are all familiar with the term "elastic", which means one thing
in physics class and means something very different in the clothing store.