Re: Etymology of mean

On 14 Dec 2005 17:04:29 -0800, "espyrian" <espyrian@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> According to dictionary.com "mean" (as in average) comes from "Middle
> English mene, middle, from Old French meien, from Latin medinus, from
> medius. See medhyo- in Indo-European Roots."
>
> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mean

The nice source that I mentioned last week does not
say anything more particular about the time of the English
usage, but it does have a nice discussion of means.

http://www.pballew.net/arithme4.html#mean

Fisher, it seems, established the use of mu for the
arithmetic mean, in the 6th edition of his textbook (1936).



--
Rich Ulrich, wpilib@xxxxxxxx
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
.