I’ve never heard of “average” defined as looking at “at all determiners of typical value, partly by excluding outliers.”
Every definition of “average” I can find is the roughly the same as the one I was taught - the most common number referred to as an average is the arithmetic mean , but “average” may also refer to the median, mode, or to a different mean other that the arithmetic mean ( including the trimmed mean, which I think is what you mean by “excluding outliers.”) so that “average” completely on its own doesn’t really mean much. Certain numbers have conventions associated with them - an “average” of a person’s grades is always a mean, not a median or a mode but a reference to the average house price might be either the mean or the median.
Of course, there other definitions of average that have nothing to do with numbers.
Although not strictly correct, I often take a rough and ready definition of “mean” as “half the values are above this number and half are below it”. In some situations this gives you a better picture of what’s going on than average. The average income in a country consisting of one multi-billionaire and a million impoverished peasants would be misleading for example.
I also find interesting the concept of geometric mean: the nth root of N values multiplied together.
There are different kinds of means (the arithmetic mean, the geometric mean, the harmonic mean) that are calculated different ways and used in different contexts. If not modified, “mean” almost always refers to the arithmetic mean, which is the one where you add all the values together and divide by how many there are.
I guess what I meant was that “mean” is a mathematical term. “Average” is legitimately a synonym for “typical,” and people who correct its use as such on the grounds that “average” has a mathematical meaning, and can’t be used colloquially, are simply wrong.
This is how it came up recently, and prompted me to post.
In a technical context, “average” usually means “mean”, and “mean”, without any qualifiers, always means the arithmetic mean (though it can also have qualifiers, such as “geometric mean”).
In a casual context, people don’t use “mean”, “median”, or “mode”, and “average” can mean any of a variety of measures of central tendency, or can also mean “reasonably close to the typical value” (like “We’re all average height”, even if we’re not all exactly the same height). I’ve even seen statements like “You can’t specify an average human body temperature, because it varies considerably”: That one, at least, I would correct, even in a casual context, because “it can vary” is the whole reason why you’d be talking about an average in the first place.
Well, yes, that is just wrong. I might correct that too, unless my boss said it. “Average” is the perfect word whether you intend “mathematical mean,” or “typical.” Even something that varies can have a typical value. Not to mention that “considerably” is not the adjective I’d choose for a range that goes from about 96.5F to 100F.
The situation I witnessed was someone (whose knowledge and use of English is superior to the general) being dressed down by someone still in college for using “average” in common parlance to mean something not mathematically calculated, in order to avoid using the word “normal” with a group who would not like hearing the kind of people being referred to, as “normal.”
Supinate = to turn upward or face-up (e.g., palm facing up)
Pronate = to turn downward or face-down (e.g., palm facing down)
I get some famous names mixed up sometimes (I blame my not-so-spring-chicken-ness):
J.Lo vs. J.Law – For years, I thought they were the same person. I figured Jennifer Lawrence also had a music career. My daughters love busting me on this. Yesterday, after watching Silver Linings Playbook (great flick, by the way), I said, “J.Lo was really good in that”—and got called an old fogie on the spot.
Bill Paxton vs. Bill Pullman – One faced aliens in Independence Day, the other faced a twister.
Anderson Cooper ↔ Cooper Anderson – Sounds like a law firm either way. And Bradley Cooper (another “Cooper”) was also in Silver Linings Playbook. Gah!
Too many Seths – Seth MacFarlane, Seth Rogen, Seth Green… Hollywood’s got a whole Seth shelf, and I keep knocking it over.
to speak one’s piece (not peace): to state one’s opinion
to hold [or keep] one’s peace (not piece): to refrain from stating one’s opinion
I almost never use either phrase in writing because I can never remember which one calls for “piece” and which for “peace,” and I don’t want to have to look it up.
As long as we are on phrases, how about begging the question versus raising the question? Those do not mean the same thing at all. In particular, begging the question assumes the initial thing.
Maybe. As was recently said in the lay/lie thread: “if everyone is doing it, they’re not wrong.”
IMO “begging the question” as a technical buzzphrase for “assuming the conclusion” has been thoroughly destroyed by common mis-use turning into common use.
If you (any you) want to mean “assuming the conclusion”, then say “assuming the conclusion”.
Traditionally, a verbal agreement is one that is explicit and expressed in words, whether written or spoken, as opposed to an tacit or implicit agreement. An oral agreement is one that is explicit and expressed in spoken but not written words, as opposed to a written agreement. There seems to be a trend of accepting verbal to mean oral, but I’m old enough to remember when Judge Wapner used to absolutely demolish people for mixing the terms up.