Meaning of Numberwang | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A situation involving a bewildering succession of numbers.
   UK, slang, uncountable
2. Alternative letter-case form of Numberwang.
   alt-of, uncountable
3. The manipulation of statistics.
   UK, slang, uncountable

Examples

“Out of the window went the idea that perhaps children are humans with emotions and background and psyche and dream, and instead in rushed labelling and tracking and spreadsheets and monitoring and failure and rapid progress and interventions and scores and you-can-but-you-over-there-can't, and here's a test and here's another one and, oh, here's another one, and all the time in this great big educational Numberwang comes one thing, sneaking in inside the Trojan Horse of accountability: FEAR.”

“Only English (180) and French (55) players have won more than their 29 titles, with more Brazilian players (16) having won the Premier League than Irish (five), Welsh (four), Scottish (four) and Northern Irish (two) put together. That's numberwang!”

“But there is a partial antidote to this numberwang, and it's context, which locates numbers in our world, the human world. Quite simply, it's what brings them to life, and once they are alive and less abstract, we can make better sense of them.”

“When viewed through a severely skeptical monocle it can look like occult numberwang. At that time, gematria appeared to me to be little more than a form of numerology.”

“Digital Radio Working Group: It must be Numberwang !”

“So, as you consider the four million must-read insight pieces that come across your desk tomorrow (again perhaps a slight numberwang), consider whether their insights would last as long as Vitruvius or Ehrenberg's advice.”

“At a time when the prison population was at an all-time high of over 85,000, a new operational structure was imposed – with the full endorsement of the biggest union, the Prison Officers' Association (POA) – that divested frontline supervisors of managerial responsibility, made them essentially mobile across prison establishments instead of being tied to a wing and provided a voluntary exit package for experienced staff. That's Numberwang!”

CEFR level