Reply to: Do you know how valuable you are

[Bernard Common]

"average:
Properly refers to the arithmetic mean (q.v.). Sometimes misused to refer to other central calculations, e.g. median (q.v.)"

So there!

Sorry that's incorrect. An Average is a moment of location of which the Mean is one.

"There are three different kinds of averages. Given a sample set: 2,2,2,3,5,6,8: The mode average (the most common answer) is 2; the median average (the one in the middle) is 3; and the mean average (the sum of all samples divided by the number of samples) is 4. Any one of which can legitimately be the average."

[Bernard Common]

Gentlemen,

Mr Common is technically correct although average and mean are usually - even in stats classes - used interchangeably. No need to get so upset with each other but presuming you'd like to continue I have loads of handbags if you'd each like to borrow one?

I really must get a more interesting gig ..........

I'm just pointing out the crap wording used by so called professionals, of course SAS uses this as an opportunity for his petty snipes as usual. Sometimes it would be better if he thought before he pounced (like a rampant Duncan Norvelle)

[expat]

"average
It is better to avoid this sometimes vague term. It usually refers to the (arithmetic) mean, but it can also signify the median, the mode, the geometric mean, and weighted means, among other things. "

"average:
Properly refers to the arithmetic mean (q.v.). Sometimes misused to refer to other central calculations, e.g. median (q.v.)"

So there!

[Zippy]

Hurrah well done you pedantic fecker. The reason I found it funny is that you think pointing out the bleeding obvious means you actually have something to say. You really are an asinine clot, aren't you?

Gentlemen,

Mr Common is technically correct although average and mean are usually - even in stats classes - used interchangeably. No need to get so upset with each other but presuming you'd like to continue I have loads of handbags if you'd each like to borrow one?

I really must get a more interesting gig ..........

[TheMonkey]

When i worked for Barclays it was 5 digits after I discovered that if you hit forward and back on one of the pages of a program we were testing you could increase the value of your money exponentially all due to them being too generous with thier rounding up.

Now that's a classic bug!

Sounds very much like the 1980's Sage rounding error that cost so many businesses so much monkey.

[Bernard Common]

Hurrah well done you pedantic fecker. The reason I found it funny is that you think pointing out the bleeding obvious means you actually have something to say. You really are an asinine clot, aren't you?

Would you like a shovel for that hole?

[sasguru]

"The median level of full-time weekly earnings was £383 per week. This is considerably lower than the average (£465),"

Now tell me why you found it funny that I pointed out this sentence was wrong becuase the median is AN average.


You put your foot in it and you are not man enough to admit I was right and you were wrong!

Edit: to help the hard of thinking. This is how it should be:
Assuming they were talking about the mean @ 465

"The median level of full-time weekly earnings was £383 per week. This is considerably lower than the mean (£465),"

Hurrah well done you pedantic fecker. The reason I found it funny is that you think pointing out the bleeding obvious means you actually have something to say. You really are an asinine clot, aren't you?

[Ardesco]

They only round to 3 digits in finance generally or 2 in e-commerce/front end transactional (to prove how much of a geek I am)

When i worked for Barclays it was 5 digits after I discovered that if you hit forward and back on one of the pages of a program we were testing you could increase the value of your money exponentially all due to them being too generous with thier rounding up.

[Bernard Common]

"The median level of full-time weekly earnings was £383 per week. This is considerably lower than the average (£465),"

Now tell me why you found it funny that I pointed out this sentence was wrong becuase the median is AN average.


You put your foot in it and you are not man enough to admit I was right and you were wrong!

Edit: to help the hard of thinking. This is how it should be:
Assuming they were talking about the mean @ 465

"The median level of full-time weekly earnings was £383 per week. This is considerably lower than the mean (£465),"

[sasguru]

Go back and read my post SLOWLY you moron.

Seeing as know so much about statistics you'll understand when I tell you you're firmly to the left of the Gaussian probability distribution for IQ

[Bernard Common]

What Zippy is trying to say is that the Mean is skewed by outliers and other extremes.The median is much more representative for salaries. Now that we've finished enlightening Andyw on GCSE statistics, can we move on ?

Go back and read my post SLOWLY you moron.

[sasguru]

What Zippy is trying to say is that the Mean is skewed by outliers and other extremes.The median is much more representative for salaries. Now that we've finished enlightening Andyw on GCSE statistics, can we move on ?

You have a point for a change, Andyw, but it ain't a point worth making FFS.

[Bernard Common]

They can be the same but are not necessarily so.

1 2 2 2 2 2 3 - Average/Mean =2, Median=2

1 2 2 2 3 3 3 - Average/Mean =2.286, Median =2

10000 20000 20000 20000 90000 570000 990000 - Average/Mean=232800, Median=20000

Using the mean can lead to drawing the wrong conclusions. If you are discussing salaries for instance the average may look pretty good. The median shows that most people don't earn anywhere near that sum.

Can I go do some work now?

I know they are not the same, what I am saying is, using the term average is missleading. Saying the median (which is an average) is less than the average is a schoolboy error. They should have said the median is less than the mean. Otherwise how do we know they are not talking about the mode?

[Zippy]

An Average is either the

Median
Mode
or arithmetic Mean


Look it up if you don't believe me

You can't say the median is less than the average for it is AN average


"average
It is better to avoid this sometimes vague term. It usually refers to the (arithmetic) mean, but it can also signify the median, the mode, the geometric mean, and weighted means, among other things. "

They can be the same but are not necessarily so.

1 2 2 2 2 2 3 - Average/Mean =2, Median=2

1 2 2 2 3 3 3 - Average/Mean =2.286, Median =2

10000 20000 20000 20000 90000 570000 990000 - Average/Mean=232800, Median=20000

Using the mean can lead to drawing the wrong conclusions. If you are discussing salaries for instance the average may look pretty good. The median shows that most people don't earn anywhere near that sum.

Can I go do some work now?

[Bernard Common]

No they're not - the median is the number in the middle of a ranked order (of salaries in this case). The mean is the average.

Sorry.....

An Average is either the

Median
Mode
or arithmetic Mean


Look it up if you don't believe me

You can't say the median is less than the average for it is AN average


"average
It is better to avoid this sometimes vague term. It usually refers to the (arithmetic) mean, but it can also signify the median, the mode, the geometric mean, and weighted means, among other things. "