Average - normal, mediocre and moral

Do you suffer from FOBA: a fear of being average?

FOBA, sometimes FOBO (fear of being ordinary), seems to be pretty common (here, here, here and here). If you suffer from a fear of being average at least some of the time, then you probably are … um… average.   

When I read the word average in articles about FOBA, I see several other meanings lurking behind it.

To me, fear of being average appears to be a modern condition caused not by illness or injustice, but by sloppy word use. Sloppy enough to cover a fear of something else entirely.

In this post, I focus on average when it is used and misused to mean normal, and in part 2 I'm going to explore average used to mean boring. 

Spurious - graphic propaganda

My love for graphs has a most unfortunate side-effect. I end up shouting and swearing at most news reports with line graphs, bar graphs or pie charts. Regularly. In fact, most days.

What I see are spurious graphs, and they make me angry.

Spurious means:

♦️  of illegitimate birth; bastard

♦️  outwardly similar or corresponding to something without having its genuine qualities; false

♦️  of falsified or erroneously attributed origin; forged; of a deceitful nature or quality.

Bastard, false, deceitful! Yep, they are some of the words I shout at the TV.

The figures are from real data, right? The plots and lines are mathematics, so how can you argue with them? They have a seductive power; their apparent objectivity gives us a sense of trust. 

Reserve that trust: graphs are all too often a tool of propaganda. 

Spurious graphs are aimed at deliberately fooling you.

Romantic - the language of flowers

♦️ Romantic (adjective): relating to love or to sexual relationships.

It's a Tuesday evening and my friend B and I are enjoying a beer after work. We're doing what we often do: making up back stories about the city workers walking past on their way home.

It's nearly 5pm and the streets are starting to crowd, so we finds lots of inspiration in the jostling pedestrians. Eventually B says, "Why are so many people carrying flowers?"

"Because it's Valentine's Day; didn't you remember? Ooh, you'll be in trouble when you get home!"

He shrugs, "Nah, I would never get flowers just because it's Valentine's Day. We never used to do that in Australia. I don't know why we started. I think Lee minds a bit, but I find it annoying to be told I have to buy them."