When did "outlier" become a word, much less a popular one? I'd never heard it before coming to work at Kaiser a year ago (it's quite popular here) and now I see it everywhere.
Well, you're ahead of the curve on this one. I can't recall having run across it, and I'm even having trouble imagining how it would be used--a noun for "one who outlies"?
No it's used to refer to a data point that lies distinctly outside the nice curve or line produced by all the rest of your data points.
In everyday terms, this is why talking about average instead of median is often useless. For example, if Larry Ellison built a $25 million dollar house on your block, then the average home price on your block would about double, but this hypothetical home is such an outlier, that it doesn't really tell you anything about the value of the other homes on your block.
an excellent explanation. I saw the word in a NY Times story today about the Democrats recently elected in staunchly GOP districts, and how they're way more conservative than most Dems.
The term "outlier" is about to hit the mainstream even harder. At the conference I attended in SD last week, Malcolm Gladwell (
The Tipping Point,
Blink) was the keynote speaker. His talk was most interesting, and he mentioned that some of it was from his upcoming book to be titled...you guessed it...
Outliers. Since this was a training conference he focused his remarks on development, and his main point was that some people develop right away (Picassos) and some over a long time (Cezannes). And as an illustration he gave a 5 minute recitation on the history of Fleetwood Mac that was amazingly detailed and humorous, including all personnel changes and why, and how their greatest success,
Rumours, was their
16th(!) LP. He then contrasted with the Eagles
Hotel California, also widely acknowledged as one of the top albums of all time, and how the Eagles had big hits starting from their first album, put out a greatest hits album after only 4 years, and produced their masterpiece in their 5th year of existence.
