By Betty Kirkpatrick
References to psephologists seem to be thinner on the ground in this election than in others, or so it seems to me. Perhaps my election-watching has been waning this time round, or perhaps psephologists tend not to come out of the woodwork until nearer the end of the line.
Certainly, the last-night television election round-ups have always been their finest hour. In case you do not know what a psephologist is, he or she is someone who specialises in the statistical analysis of elections and who studies voting patterns.
The word psephologist gives no indication as to its meaning unless you have a good knowledge of classical Greek. Even then all is not clear. The term psephology is derived from the Greek word psephos, meaning a pebble. What has a pebble to do with elections? Well, the ancient Greeks used pebbles instead of ballot papers to cast their votes.
The word psephology may have ancient connections, but was coined in relatively recent terms. It was invented in 1952 by R B McCallum (1898–1973), a professor of Modern History and Politics at Oxford.
Psephologists became the darlings of the media on election night and soon were to become close companions of the swingometer. As you will doubtless know, this is a device, first developed in the 1950s, that shows graphically the swing from one party to another on election results programmes. You may think that this is on a par with watching paint dry, but it can make a welcome change from the endless array of talking heads that pop up on our screens throughout election night.
Betty Kirkpatrick is the former editor of several classic reference books, including Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus. She is also the author of several smaller language reference books, including The Usual Suspects and Other Clichés published by Bloomsbury, and a series of Scots titles, including Scottish Words and Phrases, Scottish Quotations, and Great Scots, published by Crombie Jardine.
Want to discuss other issues? Join the debate on our new Scottish Voices forum
Related posts: