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DEAR DESTRUCTOID, LET'S TALK ABOUT THE NUMBER 5
Brilliam \| 12:14 PM on 11.26.2008	23 comments

Hey, it's Brilliam. Remember me? I used to write a bunch of stuff. Recently I've been writing for my own blog on my own website, brilli.am/writes, but that's not what I am here to talk about today. I wanna talk about something that came up in response to Dexter345's fabulous post about the scores given by Dtoid's reviewers. Truly a fasinating post; read it if you haven't already. However:

I am here to talk about two words: mediocre and average.

me·di·o·cre
Ordinary: not extraordinary; not special, exceptional, or great; of medium quality.

av·er·age
Neither very good nor very bad; rated somewhere in the middle of all others in the same category.

CAN WE PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT WHETHER A 5 MEANS MEDIOCRE OR AVERAGE? I mean, seriously, people. Do you know what mediocre means? IT DOESN'T MEAN BAD, JESUS! BAD MEANS BAD!

I apologize if this has already been brought up. I heard the question on Podtoid this morning as to whether 5 means mediocre and average, which disappointed me, and was further disappointed when they ACTUALLY TRIED TO ANSWER THE QUESTION. C'mon! It means both! Theym eans the same thing! There's a reason that "medium" and "mediocre" sound similar! Soylent Green is people! KEYSER SOZE!

Etymologically yours (also, entomologically yours),

Brilliam "Thunderbug" McThrilliam

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22 comments | showing # 1 to 22

eternalplayer2345 says:
(# 0) on 11/26/2008 12:19

I give this a 5.192..........FIGURE THAT OUT!

MrSadistic says:
(# 1) on 11/26/2008 12:35

I GIVE THIS BLOG A C+!

Kif says:
(# 2) on 11/26/2008 12:39

Well we could stop arguing over that, but it won't happen.

Qraze says:
(# 3) on 11/26/2008 12:40

5 means to me to get it if your a fan. like ATHF:zombie ninja pro-am, the game sucked but as a fan i loved it and supported it.only get it if your a fan btw.

TheDreadHawk says:
(# 4) on 11/26/2008 12:41

Five...

Five dollar...

Five dollar foot looooong.

Alexradl says:
(# 5) on 11/26/2008 13:12

Danshir says:
(# 6) on 11/26/2008 13:22

Your boring me now...

Neonie says:
(# 7) on 11/26/2008 13:48

I give this blog a 4.99. WHAT IS IT NOW?

mix says:
(# 8) on 11/26/2008 14:05

50% is a pass from grade 1-12 so the games that get a 5 just pass as being playable....done

Brilliam says:
(# 9) on 11/26/2008 14:34

Kif, you odn't understand. I'm saying that the two things being argued over ARE THE SAME THING.

Qraze:

Danshir:

SnakeDude4Life says:
(# 10) on 11/26/2008 14:41

I find this to be a common cut-and-dried garden-variety plain run-of-the-mill unremarkable post.

Good day SIR!

Brilliam says:
(# 11) on 11/26/2008 14:57

Well, THAT comment was decidedly MOR.

Danshir says:
(# 12) on 11/26/2008 15:20

It's truly a LoL experience that you typo'ed in response to our usage of your.

PappaDukes says:
(# 13) on 11/26/2008 15:23

ha, i LOVE the .png explaining the contraction "you are". I have no idea how people still can't understand the difference between "your" and "you're". I think I learned that in 5th grade? That is about as aggravating as when people spell DEFINITELY with an A (DEFINATLY!? Are you fucking kidding me??)

Anyways, as far as your post goes, I understand where you are coming from, wholeheartedly. 5 is average, mediocre, ordinary, fair, etc. They're (see what I did there!?) synonyms, get over it people.

Brilliam says:
(# 14) on 11/26/2008 15:32

Hey at least it was a typographical error and not a grammatical one! :D

Ascythopicism says:
(# 15) on 11/26/2008 16:35

@Brilliam's response to Qraze and Danshir:

Your just jealous...

garison says:
(# 16) on 11/26/2008 18:04

Don't hate on Brilliam.

Aziel13 says:
(# 17) on 11/26/2008 20:18

shit rly

Necros says:
(# 18) on 11/26/2008 20:19

For what it's worth, I'd prefer not to play a mediocre game anyways, since there are so many above average games I'd rather play.

GrayFox says:
(# 19) on 11/26/2008 20:54

Isn't there a slight difference though?

'Mediocre' is qualitative, whereas 'average' is comparative. So if you have 10 games which are all varying degrees of 'good', the 'average' game in that set would still be of 'good' quality, not 'mediocre'.

Samit Sarkar says:
(# 20) on 11/26/2008 22:01

Goddammit...I have to make that image even narrower than 400 pixels to fit in c-blog comments?! Son of a bitch.

Brilliam says:
(# 21) on 11/27/2008 10:02

Credit to Samit for the image, I forgot to say!

Grayfox: The thing is, if the ten-point scale is working properly, average and mediocre ARE the same thing. They'd both theoretically be 5.5. If you had ten games that were all varying degrees of 'good,' you either need a larger sample size, or you need to re-ealuate your opinion of "good" so that mediocre BECOMES the average.

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about me
My infatuations of the moment... XBLA: SSF2THDR, Zuma, Pac-Man CE DS: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon Music: Bon Iver, Zazen Boys, Love Is All My modestly-sized SNES game collection is as follows: F-Zero, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City, Mega Man X, Mega Man 7, Chrono Trigger, NHL 97, NHLPA Hockey '93, Stunt Race FX, Adventures of Dr. Franken, Super Game Boy, Gunforce, Secret of Mana, Super Mario All-Stars, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, UN Squadron. I like it. I've also got an Atari 2600, a PS1, a PS2, an Xbox 360, and a gaming-quality PC (finally). I want you to read my blog. My real blog, not my Cblog. brilli.am/writes, great URL, innit?