What the hell is a Business Analyst anyway?

 What's your favourite job title? 

Today HR asked me "what is the difference between a Business Analyst and a Data Analyst?" I thought about it and decided to attempt a comprehensive answer.

• BUSINESS ANALYST : analyses everything; maybe more focused on P&L impact ( business ); maybe more qualitative ( less data : modern definition );
• DATA ANALYST : analyses everything; maybe more quantitative ( more data : modern definition ); maybe not just business ( R&D? Measures of prettiness? Does this data SMELL nice? );
• QUANT (-ITATIVE ANALYST) : same as Data Analyst, but more GENG/BOOM sounding;
• DATA SCIENTIST : same as Quant but should understand scientific method (a lot of people who call themselves scientists actually don't understand the -formal- Scientific Method);
• STATISTICIAN : this is a definitive specialisation;
• DATA ENGINEER : also a definitive specialisation;
• MACHINE LEARNING ENGINEER : also a definitive specialisation - does not imply actual comprehension of statistics, though that would certainly help;
• ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ENGINEER : my dear, if you can define intelligence satisfactorily, I would be happy to entertain your definition of  its synthetic counterpart;
• etc.

I had a boss who was like, "you're chief tactician," I'm like, "wha?" he's like "it's from F1," - I don't watch F1. It was weird.