title: Can I use numbers instead of words in my python dataset?
body: <p>I'm currently in the process of creating a dataset where there is going to be a large number of categoric variables. Obviously this is fine, however I don't want lots of new columns to be created when I am to convert them into dummy variables.</p>
  <p>For example, one of my columns is called 'season' and each row either has autumn, winter, spring or summer in them. Could I change this into numbers instead? So, autumn would equal 1, winter equals 2, spring equals 3 etc. I mean changing this to numbers whilst the data is still in excel, not python.</p>
  <p>The purpose of this dataset is to build a multiple linear regression model and I will be doing this using python. I'm just asking this question as I want to know if it would affect my results if I change the words to numbers beforehand and not create dummy variables as a result.</p>
  <p>Thank you!</p>