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I know nothing about GP, but note that it is possible that English is not his first language, and the subtleties of the story and vocabulary might be lost in tr

I know nothing about GP, but note that it is possible that English is not his first language, and the subtleties of the story and vocabulary might be lost in translation. In my native language (French), as you describe it, there is no word for "average" (the technical and the common terms "moyenne" are exactly the same). Until your comment, in English, I assumed you could use "average" and "mean" interchangeably.

jlokier 6y ago
My native language is English and I'm fluent and well educated. Although I do know that "average" covers mean, median and mode, when I was young I was not taught that way. First I was just taught "average" with a formula, and many years later "median" and "mode". I don't think I noticed the term "mean" until I learned about median and mode. You can see this reflected in scientific calculators used at school, where the button for calculating mean is labelled "Avg". And in Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice Calc, the function to calculate mean is called "AVERAGE". So nobody should be hard on themselves for not knowing the difference. You probably weren't taught the difference, and common tools work against it. It looks to me that the common word for statistical mean is "average" in English, but it's not the correct technical language.
- p0llard 6y ago
  > So far as I can tell, the common word for statistical mean is "average" in English You're quite probably right about common parlance.. > but it's not the correct technical language. ..but as you point out it's not really appropriate in a technical context, indeed I don't think I've come across the term "average" being used in this way in technical literature; I've normally either seen expectation (for probability theoretic cases) or mean (for statistical cases). > So nobody should be hard on themselves for not knowing the difference. Absolutely, which is why I think being hard on someone for not knowing the difference between "the average" and the median is similarly an issue.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    You realize that an interview is not the same as writing a technical article, right? It should be a conversation between two potential coworkers, and, in that context, I think saying "average" instead of "mean" is totally fine. Incidentally, "mean" doesn't quite cut it, if you want to be a stickler about it. There are several types of means: arithmetic, geometric, harmonic, etc. By that standard, you just failed the interview.
    - p0llard 6y ago
      > "mean" doesn't quite cut it, if you want to be a stickler about it. I'm going to assume, then, that you didn't read my original comment which started off this line of discussion? By that standard, you just failed the interview. ;)
      - pmiller2 6y ago
        Sorry, I dropped this! :P Touche.
user5994461 6y ago
French and English are strictly equivalent. moyenne is mean or average. The formal name is "arithmetic mean" and "moyenne arithmétique". median is médiane. people frequently use any word but median in both languages when they want to talk about the median. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_mean https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moyenne_arithm%C3%A9tique https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moyenne_arithm%C3%A9tique
- mjevans 6y ago
  Almost correct. The mean, median, and mode are three types of averages. None is 'the average'; though if you asked someone random on the street they'd probably give you the mean average.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - IggleSniggle 6y ago
    This really depends on context. When evaluating a likelihood (prediction), "average" is generally colloquial for "expected median."
  - awesome_dude 6y ago
    On an average day? Mode: On a typical day <<-- most common meaning for average in day to day conversation Mean: On a day that is in the calculated middle (for some variance) <<-- most common meaning when we think the question is about math Median: On a day that is the middle for all the possible days <<-- nobody thinks of this, but they think this is what the mean is.
andrewflnr 6y ago
In most practical situations, your initial impression is correct. As a native English speaker, I've never heard seen or heard someone use "average" to refer to a statistical summary other than the mean. If it doesn't refer to the mean, it doesn't mean anything formal/technical at all. I read GP as "median is sort of an average in the broad sense", but this is honestly kind of a stretch.
- sjg007 6y ago
  Math definitions only..
- nostrebored 6y ago
  I see it quite commonly, from technical discussions to newspaper article. When people say "the average income in the US" they are almost never talking about the mean.
  - oblio 6y ago
    I think they are. I doubt any newspaper articles use it to refer to the median, at least I've never seen them use it like that. Do you have any examples?
    - nostrebored 6y ago
      Almost every discussion about average salary or iq uses median. Even finding results for mean salary is difficult. The first page of results for mean us salary gives a list of results for average, many of which specify they are actually the median. https://www.google.com/search?q=mean+us+salary https://www.google.com/search?q=mean+us+salary
      - oblio 6y ago
        Well, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average... as a counterpoint. Almost all the Wikipedia pages about average wage use mean.

jlokier 6y ago

My native language is English and I'm fluent and well educated. Although I do know that "average" covers mean, median and mode, when I was young I was not taught that way. First I was just taught "average" with a formula, and many years later "median" and "mode". I don't think I noticed the term "mean" until I learned about median and mode. You can see this reflected in scientific calculators used at school, where the button for calculating mean is labelled "Avg". And in Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice Calc, the function to calculate mean is called "AVERAGE". So nobody should be hard on themselves for not knowing the difference. You probably weren't taught the difference, and common tools work against it. It looks to me that the common word for statistical mean is "average" in English, but it's not the correct technical language.

p0llard 6y ago
> So far as I can tell, the common word for statistical mean is "average" in English You're quite probably right about common parlance.. > but it's not the correct technical language. ..but as you point out it's not really appropriate in a technical context, indeed I don't think I've come across the term "average" being used in this way in technical literature; I've normally either seen expectation (for probability theoretic cases) or mean (for statistical cases). > So nobody should be hard on themselves for not knowing the difference. Absolutely, which is why I think being hard on someone for not knowing the difference between "the average" and the median is similarly an issue.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  You realize that an interview is not the same as writing a technical article, right? It should be a conversation between two potential coworkers, and, in that context, I think saying "average" instead of "mean" is totally fine. Incidentally, "mean" doesn't quite cut it, if you want to be a stickler about it. There are several types of means: arithmetic, geometric, harmonic, etc. By that standard, you just failed the interview.
  - p0llard 6y ago
    > "mean" doesn't quite cut it, if you want to be a stickler about it. I'm going to assume, then, that you didn't read my original comment which started off this line of discussion? By that standard, you just failed the interview. ;)
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      Sorry, I dropped this! :P Touche.

user5994461 6y ago

French and English are strictly equivalent. moyenne is mean or average. The formal name is "arithmetic mean" and "moyenne arithmétique". median is médiane. people frequently use any word but median in both languages when they want to talk about the median. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_mean https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moyenne_arithm%C3%A9tique https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moyenne_arithm%C3%A9tique

mjevans 6y ago
Almost correct. The mean, median, and mode are three types of averages. None is 'the average'; though if you asked someone random on the street they'd probably give you the mean average.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- IggleSniggle 6y ago
  This really depends on context. When evaluating a likelihood (prediction), "average" is generally colloquial for "expected median."
- awesome_dude 6y ago
  On an average day? Mode: On a typical day <<-- most common meaning for average in day to day conversation Mean: On a day that is in the calculated middle (for some variance) <<-- most common meaning when we think the question is about math Median: On a day that is the middle for all the possible days <<-- nobody thinks of this, but they think this is what the mean is.

andrewflnr 6y ago

In most practical situations, your initial impression is correct. As a native English speaker, I've never heard seen or heard someone use "average" to refer to a statistical summary other than the mean. If it doesn't refer to the mean, it doesn't mean anything formal/technical at all. I read GP as "median is sort of an average in the broad sense", but this is honestly kind of a stretch.

sjg007 6y ago
Math definitions only..
nostrebored 6y ago
I see it quite commonly, from technical discussions to newspaper article. When people say "the average income in the US" they are almost never talking about the mean.
- oblio 6y ago
  I think they are. I doubt any newspaper articles use it to refer to the median, at least I've never seen them use it like that. Do you have any examples?
  - nostrebored 6y ago
    Almost every discussion about average salary or iq uses median. Even finding results for mean salary is difficult. The first page of results for mean us salary gives a list of results for average, many of which specify they are actually the median. https://www.google.com/search?q=mean+us+salary https://www.google.com/search?q=mean+us+salary
    - oblio 6y ago
      Well, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average... as a counterpoint. Almost all the Wikipedia pages about average wage use mean.