Obscure words

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understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

Many of the animations were produced using Flash and will no longer work.

Roughly 20 years ago I was sent for work to visit a house in a small village about an hour from where I lived. I had never previously been to the village and the address I was given was fairly nondescript, something like 12, Church Street but no house name was given. On the way down I was thinking of a friend of mine from school days [20 years previously] and his brother, who I knew a little. The brother had recently married a girl who was studying shoe design in London at Cordwainers College, part of the London school of fashion. I thought about what a wonderful word cordwainer was, the almost extinct term for a shoemaker. Upon arriving at the house I walked to to front door and saw a small sign with the name of the house, Cordwainers Cottage.
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Date submitted:Mon, 12 Mar 2018 23:05:42 +0000Coincidence ID:9920