April 08, 2005

Normalization denormalization

If you go to Google Groups and search for {Z-normalization score}, Helpful Google asks you

Did you mean: Z-normalization denormalization score

If you then click on the helpfully provided link, Helpful Google next asks you

Did you mean: Z-normalization normalization denormalization score

If you click again, Helpful Google wonders

Did you mean: Z-normalization denormalization normalization denormalization score

and of course you click again, and so you are asked

Did you mean: Z-normalization normalization denormalization normalization denormalization score

At this point, we can invoke Stein's Law: "Things that can't go on forever, don't". On the other hand, there are also Davies' Corollaries:

1. Things that can’t go on forever, go on much longer than you think they will.
2. Corollorary 1 applies even after taking into account Corollorary 1.

The spelling "Corollorary" was that way in the original 11/4/2003 post at Crooked Timber, and prompted the comment: "Reading this almost gave me a coronorary", as well as a post hoc explanation on our site.

[The recursive correction at Google Groups was pointed out to me by Partha Pratim Talukdar.]

[Update: a similar problem seems to come up whenever you ask Google Groups about something with a hyphen in it, like { spark-plug cleaner}, or {watch-band replacement}. ]

Posted by Mark Liberman at April 8, 2005 04:56 PM