As these results clearly demonstrate, the word “quantiate” is much more highly correlated with biology than with physics, and vice versa for “quantify.” Since, as everybody knows, physicists are smarter than biologists[2], this means that using the word “quantitate” is stupid.
[2] V. Adrian Parsegian. Harness the hubris: Useful things physicists could do in biology. Physics Today, pages 23–27, 1997. See counterpoint column by R.H. Austin p 27, e.g., “Having lived with biologists and biochemists for a number of years, I know damn well that many of them can’t reason their way out of a paper bag, and that they really need the analytical and experimental gifts of good physicists...”.
UPDATE: Forgot to add the link to the paper! Fixed.
6 comments:
"Quantitate"? What the heck is this word.
Google results are interesting. Following the usual crop of "YourFreeOnlineDictionarySupportedOnlyBySellingYourEyeballs" links, all the other hits appear to be biology related.
Upon reading this, I had a strange experience. I began twitching, gagging, and having Tourette's-like exclamations of "somebody actually looked this up!?"
I have quantified it as a Nerd Attack.
Don't worry, I watched some MTV and am feeling better now.
You have correctly identified it as a Nerd Attack. I may go further, and quantify it as a Nerd Attack level 3.7, +- 0.4.
A biologist would evidently quantitate it, possibly as an elevated sodium level of 110 mEq/L.
I mean, of course, a depressed sodium level. Typical biologist mistake.
(note: I have no dog in this fight).
Nick, I think "quantitate" is a bastard child back-formation from "quantitative". Traditionally, biologists were not quantitative beasts. When they did an experiment that _was_ quantitative, they naturally needed to point it out. So, they quantitated. Things are obviously shifting in the world of biology, but the word remains.
Might I quantificate for a moment, I mean pontificate. This actually seems like a case where quantitate and quantitation makes more sense than quantify and quantification although I often wondered how many angels would fit on the head of a pin. Maybe the physicists can answer this since they are smarter.
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