Re: low blank high

"Don Aitken" <don-aitken@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4ofra4l5penqt16pnev1u30nu72g583re1@xxxxxxx
On Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:38:14 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<athel_cb@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 2008-08-20 20:48:54 +0200, Tom P <tombnbnb@xxxxxxxxxx> said:

Donna Richoux wrote:
minimus <minimus@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

My question will be somewhat weird but I am trying to settle a
style in my academic paper, for a section I am working.

Consider that I have three levels (of pension amounts).
I need to refer to these levels as low, middle, high.

Now, I was wondering if "middle" is the most appropriate term to
use. That is, i can say

1. low - middle - high
2. low - normal - high
3. low - standard - high

My question is, what is the usual word that would fit in between
low and high?
I mean: low is the opposite of high. How do we call the half way?

I think you're looking for "medium." It's slightly more elegant
than "middle." Drink cup sizes are often "large, medium, small."
P.S: please also try to take a mathematical approach in terming
the "half-way"

Well, that sounds like you're asking about kinds of averages: mean,
median, and mode. The mathematical definition of the "median" value
works out to be the one in the middle. In this set of numbers,
1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 7, 8

the median is 2. Fifth from each end.


Be aware that the terms average and median have quite specific
meanings in statistics.

Well yes, "median" means precisely what Donna said it meant: what
other meaning did you have in mind?

I dispute that "average" has a specific meaning in statistics, and I
think the word you are probably thinking of is "mean". In my
experience statisticians don't talk about "averages" at all, and if
they do they mean exactly the same as an ordinary person does, as
the general class of measures of location that includes the
arithmetic mean, the geometric mean, the harmonic mean (any of which
can be weighted or unweighted), the median and the mode, with a weak
preference for the first of these. In "The Advanced Theory of
Statistics", vol. I, which deals with that kind of thing, Kendall
and Stuart have an index entry that reads "Average, see Mean", which
I take to mean "We don't talk averages in this book; you probably
want 'mean' ".

The general term I remember from a long-ago course on statistics is
"measures of central tendency".

Oh, Lordy me! Sigma! Standard deviates!



.

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