Around New Year’s Day annually, you see articles or news reports on Word of the Year as chosen by various organizations. E.g., Merriam-Webster’s WOTY for 2023 was “authentic.” Runners up included “rizz” and “deadname.” WOTY for 2022 was one I’ve enjoyed for several years: “gaslighting.”
I read “stochastic” at a blog w/in the last few days. I had heard or read it before but had to look up its meaning. It’s rarely if ever used by the crowd I run with. I thought it had something to do with science, maybe chemistry. The definition from Merriam-Webster:
- 1) RANDOM. Specifically, involving a random variable
- 2) PROBABLISTIC; involving chance or probablility
When I read “stochastic” the other day, it was in the term “stochastic terrorism.” I thought the writer was just using a highfalutin substitute for “random.” But no, stochastic terrorism is a thing. William M. Briggs (Statistician to the Stars!) recently wrote about it:
Academics at universities, which are the best kind of academics, invented the idea of stochastic terrorism. According to academic James Angove (who with the others cited below may appreciate emails of congratulation on their prescience), in the peer-reviewed paper “Stochastic terrorism: critical reflections on an emerging concept“, stochastic terrorism is…
…broadly, the idea that influential individuals may demonise target groups or individuals, inspiring unknown actors to take up terroristic violence against them…I understand the phenomenon to be specifically authoritarian in nature, which not only demonises but dehumanises its targets.
Does that remind you of something that happened in the U.S. July 13, 2024?
Steve Parker, M.D.
Advanced Mediterranean Diet 
We use a stochastic indicator on Financial charts as a momentum visual that has a 0-100 range. You can look it up. My students often have a hard time pronouncing the word, so I say think of saying fantastic while saying sto-chastic. It’s a useful indicator if you know how to use it in a proper context.