slumpa

Slumpa is a verb used in Swedish to mean to randomize, to select at random, or to cause something to occur by chance. The related noun slump refers to chance or luck, and the adjective slumpmässig describes something random. In everyday language, people may say to slumpa ett nummer or slumpa ur en lista to indicate a random selection or a number produced without a deliberate order.

In formal contexts, the concept is often described with phrases such as generera slumpmässiga tal or randomisera, the latter being a direct borrowing from English. Slumpa is common in computing, gaming, and statistics as a shorthand for performing randomization tasks, such as drawing names, shuffling cards, or selecting test cases.

Examples of usage include: "Programmet slumpade fram ett tal mellan 1 och 100" (the program generated a random number between 1 and 100) and "Vi slumpade deltagarna till kontroll- och behandlingsgrupperna" (we randomized participants into control and treatment groups). In programming or documentation, slumpa may appear in informal prose as a concise way to describe the action of creating a random sequence or selection, though more formal prose typically uses randomisera or slumpmässigt urval.

Variations and regional usage may influence how strictly slumpa is applied. In technical writing, authors typically prefer explicit terms for reproducibility, such as describing the random-number generator, seed, and method used. See also randomization, random sampling, and random-number generation.