“…As one last piece of evidence about the value of stories, there is a grand irony behind the saying that I started this blog post with: “The plural of anecdote is not data.” When Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Dictionary of Quotations investigated the origins of the truism, he found an interesting anecdote at its source.”

“Political scientist Raymond Wolfinger first used a variation of the common phrase in a graduate seminar at Stanford. A student in the class dismissed a simple factual statement as “a mere anecdote,” and Wolfinger snapped back, “The plural of anecdote is data.” Somewhere along the line, Wolfinger’s words got twisted into their reverse, and it has been repeated in that form ever since.”

“But of course, statistically speaking, Wolfinger’s the one who got the quotation wrong.”

http://www.nathanstorring.com/2015/05/06/how-stories-clarify-complexity/