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To explain a new signal processing technique based on Fourier Transform, Bogert et al went on to define a new vocabulary. The new terminology was published in a paper with the title:

The Quefrency Alanysis of Time Series for Echoes: Cepstrum, Pseudo-autocovariance, Cross-Cepstrum, and Saphe Cracking, B.P. Bogert, M.J.R. Healy, J.W. Tukey, Proc. Symp. Time Series Analysis, M. Rosemblatt, Ed., John Wiley & Sons, 1963, pp. 209-243.

Spell-checkers are not recommended... :-)

ADDED: As we can see, the authors changed the position of the letters in the paper title to reflect the phenomenon analysed (echo in communication). Then, they used these new words to nominate the signal processing technique.

The question is: are there another papers with this characteristic (papers where the unusual terminology in the title reflect the phenomenon analysed) ?

Only the term Cepstrum has been widely used.

BTW, Cepstrum is the result of taking the Inverse Fourier transform (FT) of the logarithm of the spectrum of a signal. There is a complex cepstrum, a real cepstrum, a power cepstrum, and phase cepstrum. The power cepstrum in particular finds applications in the analysis of human speech.

ADDED: The idea of the kepstrum appears in the classical work of Poisson (1823), Schwarz (1872), Szego (1915), and Kolmogorov (1939), and has been applied to geophysical problems by Robinson (1954), Bogert et al. (1963), Schafer (1969), Oppenheim and Schafer (1975), Tribolet (1977), and others., M.T. Silvia, E.A. Robinson, Use of Kepstrum in Signal Analysis, Geoexploration, 16, 1978, pp. 55-73.

Our word “kepstrum” means the same as their term “complex cepstrum”. Because the kepstrum of a real-time sequence is real, the use of the word “kepstrum” is less confusing than the term “complex cepstrum”., M.T. Silvia, E.A. Robinson, Use of Kepstrum in Signal Analysis, Geoexploration, 16, 1978, pp. 55-73.

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marked as duplicate by Steven Gubkin, Felipe Voloch, Andy Putman, Martin Brandenburg, François G. Dorais Jun 6 '12 at 20:03


Mlibey . –  Emil Jeřábek Jun 6 '12 at 15:09
I feel this is a subquestion to mathoverflow.net/questions/22299/… and should be closed. –  Steven Gubkin Jun 6 '12 at 15:09
Ah I see. So you are only interested in papers where the unusual terminology became widely accepted. By "this characteristic" I thought you meant just that the title was unusual. –  Steven Gubkin Jun 6 '12 at 15:39
@PaPiro: if I understand correctly, you are after papers with neologisms (not just "unusual words") in the title. What extra conditions you want these neologisms to satisfy isn't quite as clear, but mathematicians create language all the time. By restricting the scope enough you should be able to concoct a valid question on that general subject. –  Francois Ziegler Jun 6 '12 at 23:21
Could you kindly stop the endless editing of this question. If you want to get it reopened and/or improved start a discussion on meta (you'd need to signup there too, but this is trivial and instant) –  quid Jun 11 '12 at 19:31

2 Answers 2

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Jean-Pierre Serre: Gèbres, Enseign. Math. (2) 39 (1993), 33–85.

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Diener, Francine; Diener, Marc Chasse au canard. I. Les canards. (French) [Duck hunt. I. The ducks] Collect. Math. 32 (1981), no. 1, 37–74.

Benoît, Éric Chasse au canard. II. Tunnels—entonnoirs—peignes. (French) [Duck hunt. II. Tunnels—funnels—combs] Collect. Math. 32 (1981), no. 2, 77–97.

Callot, Jean-Louis Chasse au canard. III. Les canards ont la vie brève. (French) [Duck hunt. III. Ducks have a short life] Collect. Math. 32 (1981), no. 2, 99–114.

Benoît, Éric; Callot, Jean-Louis Chasse au canard. IV. Annexe numérique. (French) [Duck hunt. IV. Numerical appendix] Collect. Math. 32 (1981), no. 2, 115–119.

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