Those of us who are practicing data analysis and sharing the results with others need to keep in

mind the differences between what these words mean to statisticians, and what they mean to
everyone else. 

1. Significant 
When most people say something is "significant," they mean it's important and worth your attention.
But for statisticians, significance refers to the odds that what we observe is not simply a chance
result. Statisticians know that on a practical level, significant results often have no importance at all.
This distinction between practical and statistical significance is easy for people to overlook. 

2. Normal
Normally, people who say something is "normal" mean that it's ordinary or commonplace. We call a
temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit "normal." What's more, when something isn't "normal," it
often carries negative connotations: "That knocking from my car's engine isn't normal."  But to
statisticians, data is “normal” when it follows the familiar bell-shaped curve, and there's
nothing wrong with data that isn't normal. But it's easy for the uninitiated to conflate "nonnormal
data" with "bad data." 

3. Regression
In everyday usage, regression means shrinkage or backwards movement. When the dog you're
training has a bad day after a few positive ones, you might say his behavior regressed. Unless
you're a statistician, you wouldn't immediately think "regression" refers to predicting an output
variable based on input variables.

4. Average
In statistics, the arithmetic average (or mean) is the sum of the observations divided by the number
of observations. When most people hear and say the word "average," they're not thinking about a
mathematical value but rather a qualitative judgment, meaning “so-so,” "normal" or "fair." 

5. Error
Error is a measure of an estimate’s precision—if you're a statistician. To everyone else, errors are
just mistakes. 

6. Bias
In statistics, bias refers to the accuracy of measurements taken by a particular tool or gauge
compared to a reference value. In everyday usage, however, bias refers to preconceptions and
prejudices that affect a person's view of the world. 

7. Residual
For most people who aren't statisticians, residuals is a fancy word for leftovers, not the difference
between observed and fitted values.

8. Power
Usually we talk about power in terms of impact and control. Influence. So the fact that a statistical
test can be powerful but not influential seems contradictory, unless you already know it refers to the
probability of finding a...um...significant effect when one truly exists.   

9. Interaction
People use this word to talk about their communications with others. For statisticians, it means the
effects of one factor are dependent on another.

10. Confidence 
In statistics, the confidence interval is a range of values, derived from a sample, that is likely to hold
the true value of a population parameter. The confidence level is the percentage of confidence
intervals that contain that population parameter you would get if you sampled the population many
times.

Outside of its technical meaning in statistics, the word "confidence" carries an emotional charge that
can instantly create unintended implications. All too often, people interpret statistical confidence as
meaning the researchers really believe in their results.