the.com/ratings
a number we trust more than the thing it's supposedly measuring.
means Scores or rankings that assign a measurable value—stars, percentages, audience size—to how good, popular, or worthy something is judged to be.
from From 'rate,' which came through Old French 'rate' from Medieval Latin 'rata,' short for 'pro rata parte'—meaning 'according to a fixed proportion.' That Latin 'rata' is the feminine past participle of 'reri,' 'to reckon or calculate.' So 'rating' began as a matter of reckoning a proper share or proportion (think tax rates, ship's ratings for sailors), and only later swelled into the modern sense of measuring worth, popularity, and the all-important television audience.
- five stars
- Most reviews cluster at 1 or 5, rarely middle
- Nielsen origins
- TV ratings began with a 1930s mechanical box
- bomb threat
- Bond movies got ratings to ensure box-office reach
- review bombing
- Coordinated 1-star raids can sink products overnight
- credit roots
- Bond ratings predate movie ratings by decades
imdb — movie and tv database with 10-point scale used by 250+ million users
michelin guide — restaurant rating system using stars, established 1900, determines prestige of restaurants globally
rotten tomatoes — film aggregator with tomatometer score that influences box office performance
yelp — business review platform with 5-star ratings, 215+ million monthly users