What do American drivers, the children of Lake Wobegon, and termites have in common?
They are all above average.
Here’s what a regular reader called LLP pointed out in an e-mail:
There is a TV ad running here in Southern California for a pest control company. It states that “the average termite eats 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” so your million dollar home is at risk.
This got me thinking that the idea of average is on the upper limit — which does not make sense since no termite can exceed the maximum time alloted in a day or a week.
I wonder how many more misleading ads are being foisted on unsuspecting or “unthinking” people who simply listen to such blabber.
One other example, LLP points out, is a new car’s mileage per gallon of gas — “which does not take into consideration driving conditions, driver’s habits or vehicle’s load.”
Other examples of above-average promises?
and 
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Not so. A common mistake of mediam, mode and average. If 100 kids take a test and one scores 100% while 99 score 2%, then indeed, 99% will score below average.
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“I would expect 50% to test below average, otherwise it’s not average.
- Posted by Ryan Phelps”
Dear Ryan P;
no thanks to our educational system. I was fortunate- had the best teacher ever- my dad. He taught me how to do the math and the rest is history.
In 1987, John Cannell surveyed US state education boards and found that 50 out of 50 reported their students were above average. See http://www.thirdeducationgroup.org/Review/Essays/v2n1.pdf
He concludes that when the states contract for testing services, part of the contract is a conveniently low-scoring control group to compare against.
GoToMeeting used to have an XM commercial that claimed: “[By using GoToMeeting,] you can literally meet with anyone, anywhere, at any time.”
I’m thinking they meant “figuratively.”
One of the best ads I’ve ever seen is for The Economist. It just has a red background with these words:
“A poster should contain no more than eight words, which is the maximum the average reader can take in at a single glance. This, however, is a poster for Economist readers.”
Well, it could be my English skills or my knowledge of termites, which are both far from ideal, but for me, these statements are different:
- the average termite eats 24 hours a day;
- a termite eats in average 24 hours a day.
The first one, as in the ad, doesn’t sound that strange. The second one is an above-average promise.
Right?
The American educational system has tens of millions of students. I’m willing to bet that the average and the median are pretty close to each other.
Please, feel free to substitute mean, median, mode, average, normal, smart/stupid as you see fit.
I stand by the spirit of my comment.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems as though the ad says “the average termite”. It seems that this could still be valid because it does not say “a termite eats 24 hours a day on average”. The mean value of time that a termite eats does not seem to be the subject here, but rather the mean value termite (whatever that means). It does seem that the word typical would have perhaps been better.