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No offense but that's a pedantic distinction. "Average" is commonly understood to be arithmetic mean. The point of my comment is that if the compensation is t

No offense but that's a pedantic distinction. "Average" is commonly understood to be arithmetic mean. The point of my comment is that if the compensation is truly showing the average / arithmetic mean, then the data is skewed by outliers. If it's the median instead, they should should say so.

dredmorbius 7y ago
Precision in thought and expression can often hinge on such pedantry. A word itself deriving from pedante, "teacher": https://www.etymonline.com/word/pedant https://www.etymonline.com/word/pedant The roots of average come from shipping, "any small charge over freight cost", from French avarie "damage to ship". The notion of which average specifically is meant varies, the association with "mean" dates only to the late 18th or early 19th century. https://www.etymonline.com/word/average https://www.etymonline.com/word/average What's ironic in the argument between mean and median is that they do in fact share the same root of the Latin medius https://www.etymonline.com/word/mean https://www.etymonline.com/word/mean https://www.etymonline.com/word/median https://www.etymonline.com/word/median And again, in current dictionary usage (as well as my several uni stats courses), you'll find that "average" applies to any of the measures of central tendency, though yes, "mean" is probably most commonly (and ferverantly, as you demonstrate) understood. Merriam Webster, first defintion: average: 1 a : a single value (such as a mean, mode, or median) that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/average https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/average Which makes the argument of your initial comment, that the median is not a meaning of "average", again, false.
- khazhoux 7y ago
  > Which makes the argument of your initial comment, that the median is not a meaning of "average", again, false. As you note, my point is that "average" is most commonly understood as mean. The original article seems to fall prey to the classic mean-vs-median distinction. The compensation numbers being presented do not necessarily represent what one would expect. FAANGs are known to give a small number of employees multi-million-dollar comp packages -- that will skew the average (erm... mean) but not the median.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Fair point, and a highly useful one to keep in mind when looking at long-tail vs. normally-distributed statistics. The article ... contains numerous misspellings and other flaws (I can note though not really complain as I do similarly...), but yes, really should note which of the various available "average" values it's considering.

dredmorbius 7y ago

Precision in thought and expression can often hinge on such pedantry. A word itself deriving from pedante, "teacher": https://www.etymonline.com/word/pedant https://www.etymonline.com/word/pedant The roots of average come from shipping, "any small charge over freight cost", from French avarie "damage to ship". The notion of which average specifically is meant varies, the association with "mean" dates only to the late 18th or early 19th century. https://www.etymonline.com/word/average https://www.etymonline.com/word/average What's ironic in the argument between mean and median is that they do in fact share the same root of the Latin medius https://www.etymonline.com/word/mean https://www.etymonline.com/word/mean https://www.etymonline.com/word/median https://www.etymonline.com/word/median And again, in current dictionary usage (as well as my several uni stats courses), you'll find that "average" applies to any of the measures of central tendency, though yes, "mean" is probably most commonly (and ferverantly, as you demonstrate) understood. Merriam Webster, first defintion: average: 1 a : a single value (such as a mean, mode, or median) that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/average https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/average Which makes the argument of your initial comment, that the median is not a meaning of "average", again, false.

khazhoux 7y ago
> Which makes the argument of your initial comment, that the median is not a meaning of "average", again, false. As you note, my point is that "average" is most commonly understood as mean. The original article seems to fall prey to the classic mean-vs-median distinction. The compensation numbers being presented do not necessarily represent what one would expect. FAANGs are known to give a small number of employees multi-million-dollar comp packages -- that will skew the average (erm... mean) but not the median.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Fair point, and a highly useful one to keep in mind when looking at long-tail vs. normally-distributed statistics. The article ... contains numerous misspellings and other flaws (I can note though not really complain as I do similarly...), but yes, really should note which of the various available "average" values it's considering.