I disagree. In statistics there are three quartiles, four quintiles, ... ,
99 centiles.
Tertile is the corresponding term for the two values dividing a ranked data
set into three equal groups, but it seems that the word tercile is
sometimes used instead.
However, there is widespread misuse of these useful terms to mean thirds,
quarters etc, e.g. 'in the top quartile'. The wide uptake of this misuse in
both the scientific literature and the mass media suggests that we will
probably soon have to admit defeat.
Doug
At 11:47 25/08/2004 -0400, Art Kendall wrote:
>In statistic:
>Quartile means one of four ntiles, quintile means one of 5 ntiles, ,
>sextile(6), septile(7), and decile(10). "ter" is also from Latin and
>means three. By analogy I would guess that a tercile is one of three
>ntiles. ntiles are usually used to indicate portions of cases in a
>sample.
>
>In astronomy, I would guess an arc of 120 degrees.
>
>Art
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>
>Regina Malina wrote:
>
>>Hi everyone,
>>I encountered this term (TERCILE) and do not seem to have any luck finding
>>out what it is.
>>Can anyone help with the definition?
>>Thank you! Regina
>>
>>
_____________________________________________________
Doug Altman
Professor of Statistics in Medicine
Cancer Research UK Medical Statistics Group
Centre for Statistics in Medicine
Old Road Campus, Headington
Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: 01865 226799
Fax: 01865 226962
www: http://www.ihs.ox.ac.uk/csm/
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