Funny email!

 

I must preface this by saying that, when I attended graduate school for one semester at the University of Akron, I had aspirations of getting a Ph.D. I still do, but that's a long ways away from me now.

One of the requirements for a doctorate (at U of A, at least) is the ability to speak a second language. While I am functionally bilingual in my own right (Je parle le bien français!), they meant a research language, since my study has nothing to do with language itself.

The following list of phrases and their definitions might help you understand the mysterious language of science. These special phrases are also applicable to anyone reading a PhD dissertation or academic paper.

 

"IT HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN"...

I didn't look up the original reference.

 

"A DEFINITE TREND IS EVIDENT"...

These data are practically meaningless.

 

"WHILE IT HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE DEFINITE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS"...

An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published.

 

"THREE OF THE SAMPLES WERE CHOSEN FOR DETAILED STUDY"...

The other results didn't fit my theory.

 

"TYPICAL RESULTS ARE SHOWN"...

This is the prettiest graph.

 

"THESE RESULTS WILL BE IN A SUBSEQUENT REPORT"...

I might get around to this sometime, if pushed/funded.

 

"IN MY EXPERIENCE"...

Once

 

"IN CASE AFTER CASE"...

Twice

 

"IN A SERIES OF CASES"...

Thrice

 

"IT IS BELIEVED THAT"...

I think.

 

"IT IS GENERALLY BELIEVED THAT"...

A couple of others think so, too.

 

"CORRECT WITHIN AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE"...

Wrong.

 

"ACCORDING TO STATISTICAL ANALYSIS"...

Rumor has it.

 

"A STATISTICALLY-ORIENTED PROJECTION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE FINDINGS"...

A wild guess.

 

"A CAREFUL ANALYSIS OF OBTAINABLE DATA"...

Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of beer.

 

"IT IS CLEAR THAT MUCH ADDITIONAL WORK WILL BE REQUIRED BEFORE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF THIS PHENOMENON OCCURS"...

I don't understand it

 

"AFTER ADDITIONAL STUDY BY MY COLLEAGUES"...

They don't understand it either.

 

"THANKS ARE DUE TO JOE BLOTZ FOR ASSISTANCE WITH THE EXPERIMENT AND TO CINDY ADAMS FOR VALUABLE DISCUSSIONS" ...

Mr. Blotz did the work and Ms. Adams explained to me what it meant.

 

"A HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT AREA FOR EXPLORATORY STUDY"...

A totally useless topic selected by my committee.

 

"IT IS HOPED THAT THIS STUDY WILL STIMULATE FURTHER INVESTIGATION IN THIS FIELD"...

I quit.

I see that was long enough to reach a new content block on your left hand side. It's a wonderful little thing that I encourage you to click. I like to think my blog gets a lot of traffic from off of BZP, and let's just say that the commish's message mentioned below wasn't the only thing in my inbox this morning. (Yesterday morning, I had 40 emails waiting for me: 34 of them were about penny stocks. )

 

In my inbox this morning (in addition to the penny stock spam) was a note from the commissioner of the fantasy league here at work. The Cruisers are one of 5 teams eliminated from playoff contention. His Titans, however, have a gossamer-fine thread of a chance to make it in as the wild card. It starts with him running the table, (win vs. Cruisers, win @ Stallions), and requires the Gators collapsing (lose vs. Crunchers, lose @ Dominion), the Hooligans losing another game (@ Sharks, vs. Knights), and the Mudhens getting at most one tie out of their last two games (vs. Dominion, @ Crunchers).

 

What does all that mean?

It means I can dash his playoff hopes straight up this weekend by sweeping the season series with him.

 

 

-KIE