(This article was originally published at Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science, and syndicated at StatsBlogs.)
Haynes Goddard writes:
Reviewing my notes and books on categorical data analysis, the term “nominal” is widely employed to refer to variables without any natural ordering. I was a language major in UG school and knew that the etymology of nominal is the Latin word nomen (from the Online Etymological Dictionary: early 15c., “pertaining to nouns,” from Latin nominalis “pertaining to a name or names,” from nomen (genitive nominis) “name,” cognate with Old English nama (see name (n.)). Meaning “of the nature of names” (in distinction to things) is from 1610s. Meaning “being so in name only” first recorded 1620s.)
So variables without a natural order such as gender (male-female), transport mode (walk, bicycle, bus, train, car) and so on are just coded 0, 1 and so on. Yet the textbook writers do not explain that nominal just means name which it seems to me would help the students better understand the application.
Do you know when this usage was first introduced into statistics?
I have no idea but maybe you, the readers, can offer some insight?
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