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this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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Last question, because I am mentally screaming and need to make an apt pun:
Why don't you just say what you mean?
lol at your pun, but is your solution really to stop using “average” all together?
But it’s ok. I do understand the etymological frustration that you’re feeling, but I gotta say just take a step back from your preconceived notions and think if what you’re saying would make sense when applying it more broadly.
If you think we should simply say what we mean, should we remove all broader terms if there are already more specific words? Should we stop referring to dogs and cats as pets or animals or mammals when they already have more specific names? No, because you can refer to a group of cats and dogs as a group of animals (or as mammals to differentiate them from birds or as pets to differentiate them from wild animals). Similarly, you can generalize and speak about all averages together at once. See I just did it here, and the person you originally replied to was also using it to speak more broadly and compare/contrast means and medians. It was merely your narrow definition that caused your confusion.
No. My solution is that you, and according to Wikipedia, finance, Sports Statistics, and ESL people add "descriptive statistic" to their vocabulary.
I hear "the average is 7" and until today that means the values summed and divided by the count of values is 7.
So I run with that.
Then when I'm knee deep in shit, you get all weasly and say "what I meant is that the mode was 7".
Because you call mode an average. But to me it's not the average, it's a descriptive statistic called mode.
If you said "the descriptive statistic is 7" I could say immediately "which descriptive statistic" and you would say "mode" and then my course of action wouldn't get me knee deep in shit.
But, to me, your are Weasley and you just pulled the "7 average" out your ass because you can't math.
So you should have said "the mode is 7" or "I flunked basic math, so right here I'm just saying 7, guess what I mean by 7."
I dont know. This whole thing we are talking about feels like it's summarized by the statement: "I am unable to do basic math, but I get paid to do math, so I participate in this weasly little exercise of incorrectly using the word average, and irl, that usually gets the guy who trusted me getting shitcanned and I can still keep saying 'the average is fucked if I know' and I still have my job".
Holy cow. You are really really trying hard to not make sense of this and being incredibly rude. No one said anyone had to add “descriptive statistics” to their vocabulary. The Wikipedia article I linked in no place said average is used for all statistics. You are making that distinction, and it seems wholly incorrect and nonsensical to me, and I do math for a living, so stop with your insulting implication that the only people who could possibly use average to mean anything other than mean must be too stupid to understand math. (And seriously, fuck you for that implication.)
There’s nothing weasily about someone using average to mean mode. You have simply misunderstood the definition of average, and while I’m kindly trying to help you understand, you are making zero attempt to even try. But at this point, I’m out of patience with you annd your lack effort. I’m frankly tired of watching merely trying to find any excuse to reject the broader definition. Get a fucking grip.