I like ‘ass number’ because it points at the actual experience / cognitive process behind these numbers. ‘Wild guess’ is vaguer—e.g., if I’m using a standard statistical technique to estimate a number from other (observed) numbers, then I wouldn’t call that an ‘ass number’, but I might still call it a ‘wild guess’ if the output is extremely uncertain.
Thanks! Good point, I’ll edit those in!
I like ‘ass number’ because it points at the actual experience / cognitive process behind these numbers. ‘Wild guess’ is vaguer—e.g., if I’m using a standard statistical technique to estimate a number from other (observed) numbers, then I wouldn’t call that an ‘ass number’, but I might still call it a ‘wild guess’ if the output is extremely uncertain.
I always hear “swag” (“scientific wild-ass guess”), which manages to incorporate both “ass” and “wild guess”.