Andertoons by Mark Anderson for December 14, 2021

“Median” is like “medium.” It’s the one in the middle.“Mode” is the fashion. Which one is most common? (It’s in style to be an eight.)“Mean” is what the teacher is to make you add up all those numbers and divide.

Alliteration never helps.

For that set of numbers, the answers are almost all the same for all three terms.

Add one to almost any one of the numbers, and all answers would be exactly the same.

A lot of children already suspect that math is mean

M—A—mayM—E—meM—I—micky-my—M—O—moeMicky—my—mow—M—U—mooMicky—my—mow—moo

I never saw the need for the Median until a teacher explained it like this: Suppose there’s a small town in the mountains. Most inhabitants work in a single factory and earn under $30,000 a year. But on top of a mountain near the edge of town lives a famous author who makes $20 million a year. Average those together and you get an income higher than most people in town make. The Median gives a much more accurate indication of what most people in town earn.

Always Avoid Alliteration

In my 80 years, I’ve always enjoyed mathematics, but have never heard of the term Mode. Is that a term related to accounting or statistics, neither of which have I studied? It’s defined as the number that occurs most often in a set, but what is the significance of that? And how does the significance change relative to the number of digits in the numbers in the set?