The Naming of Stats is a difficult matter,
     It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a stat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all are the names where usage is informal,
     Such as Median, Estimate, Average, or Range,
Such as Variance, Quartile, or else Standard Normal
     All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names that may be better-tasting,
     Some for the frequentists, some for the Bayes:
Such as Skew, or Kurtosis, Metropolis–Hastings—
     But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a stat needs a name that’s obscurer,
     A name that’s misleading, and hard to construe,
Else how can it keep on confusing the reader,
     Or frustrate professors, or pass peer review?
Of names of this kind, there are many examples,
     Like Hierarchical, Robust, or Omega-hat,
Such as Marginal, Confidence, or just Weighted Sample,
     Names that always belong to more than one stat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
     And that is the name that you never will guess;
The thing that no human research can discover—
     But THE STAT MIGHT JUST KNOW, and be made to confess.
When you notice a stat getting quite widely cited,
     The reason, I tell you, is always because:
Its user’s engaged, or enraged, or excited
     At the prospect of pinning the root of all laws:
          That inviolable, friable
          Unidentifiable
Deep and inscrutable singular Cause.