Here is what my colleague dug up and his reaction to it, afterwards, and then one of mine:
Pistolet, nom masculin DESSIN. Instrument de trac� permettant de dessiner les lignes courbes dans les trac�s g�om�triques. Synon. curvigraphe, virgule. Les outils de l'�crivain plumiste sont: la plume, le tire-ligne, le compas (...) le balustre pour tous les petits cercles, (...) un jeu de pistolets (CHELET, Lithogr., 1933, p.58). Un compas, un compas de r�duction, un curvigraphe, un pistolet de dessinateur, en sont des exemples (...) simples [de �machine� � interpolation] (RUYER, Cybern., 1954, p.43). J'aurai utilis� curvigraphe I seem to recall that when I first read about cubic splines, the splines on which they were based were flexible curves that were made to pass through knots (or ducks, I think), not at all like the rigid French curve. ken Quoting "Liaw, Andy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > From: Ken Knoblauch > > > > > > >I remember that my father had a French curve: it was a > > plastic template > > >used for drawing which had several smooth edges of varying curvature. > > >You could use it to draw a wide variety of curved shapes. > > No doubt the > > >French called it something else. > > > > Nobody, up and down the corridor here, of age to have used one, could > > think of a name, but we looked it up in a universal French dictionary > > on the web, and it came up with ``un pistolet''. > > I recall reading: > > E.J. Wegman and I.W. Wright. Splines in Statistics. > Journal of the American Statistical Association, vol 78, > N382, 1983. > > which mentioned `spline' as a tool that draftsmen used to draw curves, but > the description does not match the french curve I know, which _is_ a > template-like piece of various curvature. (I used one of these in the year > I spent in Architechture school right after high school. No, I not _that_ > old... I believe they are still in common used today.) > > Andy > > > ____________________ > > Ken Knoblauch > > Inserm U371, Cerveau et Vision > > Department of Cognitive Neurosciences > > 18 avenue du Doyen Lepine > > 69675 Bron cedex > > France > > tel: +33 (0)4 72 91 34 77 > > fax: +33 (0)4 72 91 34 61 > > portable: 06 84 10 64 10 > > http://www.lyon.inserm.fr/371/ > > > > ______________________________________________ > > [email protected] mailing list > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > > PLEASE do read the posting guide! > > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Notice: This e-mail message, together with any attachment...{{dropped}} ______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
