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  • Hi this Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 84. The word origin today is average.

  • Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. Today the word average simply refers to

  • adding up several numbers and then dividing the total by the number of

  • things added together. Yeah. So it's pretty simple.

  • Let's continue. The origin of the word average comes out of the Middle Ages and

  • was similar to the idea of what we would call insurance or at least call insurance

  • today, especially insurance on shipped goods. Back in the Middle Ages shipping

  • was the main way of transporting goods. Really the only way, from one country to

  • another. And there was a lot of loss due to accidents, ships lost at sea from

  • storms, pirates etc. or who knows maybe something else moving around you know,

  • you don't know if any crew stole anything. In order to keep the business

  • of commerce and trade going, a charge above the shipping had to be made. Okay.

  • This charge was paid to the owners of the goods or the ship . Yeah or like

  • the ship or the ship captain. I guess for taking care of the goods and any loss or

  • damage of the goods through transport or maybe the shipping company. Different

  • versions of this word could be found in several languages such as ... I hope I'm

  • pronouncing these right. Avarie maybe in French, avaria in Italian and or averia

  • or averia in Spanish. Some believe it may have derived from awariya.

  • okay in Arabic. All of these words have to do with damage to the ships or goods

  • in order to keep commerce operating in a fair way. They had to make this charge in

  • which all parties, all groups... so if you know the producer of the goods , or if

  • there was a middleman for trade, the shipping company itself and maybe on the

  • other side whoever the merchants the goods were going to. All parties had to

  • average out the cost and share in any losses. Yeah. Because of only one side or

  • just one group is taking the losses. It won't work. Nobody will want to

  • participate in this. Therefore an average cost was determined for all to pay and

  • our modern word of average was born. So this is where average came from. So it

  • actually came from shipping and it really had more to do with something

  • like you know, like I said what we would call today kind of an insurance or

  • insurance policy. Okay. Anyway, I hope you got it. I

  • hope it was clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.

Hi this Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 84. The word origin today is average.

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