Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles 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.
A2 US average shipping insurance charge commerce origin English Tutor Nick P Word Origins (84) Average 5 0 anitawu12 posted on 2019/11/04 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary