I’d love to do a search and replace on a D.Phil student’s thesis!
| Used in a Thesis… |
Phrases’ Actual Meaning. |
| IT HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN… |
I haven’t bothered to look up the original reference. |
| IT IS NOT UNREASONABLE TO ASSUME… |
If you believe this, you’ll believe anything. |
| OF GREAT THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL IMPORTANCE |
Interesting to me. |
WHILE IT HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE DEFINITE ANSWERS
TO THESE QUESTIONS… |
The experiments didn’t work out, but I figured I could get publicity
out of it. |
| THREE OF THE SAMPLES WERE CHOSEN FOR DETAILED STUDY |
The results on the others didn’t make sense, and were ignored. |
| TYPICAL RESULTS ARE SHOWN |
The best results are shown. |
| PRESUMABLY AT LONGER TIMES… |
I didn’t take the time to find out. |
| THESE RESULTS WILL BE REPORTED AT A LATER DATE |
I might get around to this sometime. |
| THE MOST RELIABLE VALUES ARE THOSE OF JONES |
He was a student/supervisor of mine. |
| IT IS BELIEVED THAT… |
I think. |
| IT IS GENERALLY ACCEPTED THAT… |
A guy in a bar once agreed with me. |
| IT IS WIDESPREAD KNOWLEDGE THAT… |
Two guys in a bar agreed with me. |
| IT IS UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED THAT… |
The bartender agreed too |
| IT MIGHT BE ARGUED THAT… |
I have such a good answer for this objection that I shall now raise
it. |
IT IS CLEAR THAT MUCH ADDITIONAL WORK WILL BE REQUIRED
BEFORE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING… |
I don’t understand. |
| CORRECT WITH IN AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE |
Wrong. |
IT IS TO BE HOPED THAT THIS WORK WILL STIMULATE FURTHER
WORK IN THE FIELD |
This paper is not very good, but neither are any of the others on this
miserable subject. |
THANKS ARE DUE TO X FOR ASSISTANCE WITH THE EXPERIMENT
AND TO Y FOR VALUABLE DISCUSSIONS |
X did the work, and Y explained it to me. |
| OF GREAT PRACTICAL IMPORTANCE… |
I can get some mileage out of it. |
| IT HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE DEFINITIVE ANSWERS… |
The experiment was negative, but at least I can publish the data somewhere. |
| THESE INVESTIGATIONS PROVED HIGHLY REWARDING… |
My grant is going to be renewed. |
| FASCINATING WORK… |
Work by a member of our group. |
| OF DOUBTFUL SIGNIFICANCE… |
it was done by someone else. |
| TRIVIAL… |
It took me a whole week to figure it out. |
| DATA HAVE BEEN NORMALISED… |
You wouldn’t believe the numbers I got. |
| STATISTICAL ANALYSES REVEAL… |
I had to lie a bit. |
| DATA PROCESSING PROCEDURES WERE IMPLEMENTED… |
I had to lie a lot. |
| I SHOULD LIKE TO THANK… |
Please put in a good word for me with the examiners. |
Ξ January 24th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Maths |
The Inverse Square Law says that (for example), if the distance between, say, the Earth, and a spacecraft were halved, then the force of gravity – attracting one to the other – would increase by a power of two : as the distance continues to halve, the attraction becomes ever more massive in other words – exponentially.
This law pops up in quite a few interesting places – like in the gravitational effect, the intensity of light (and of sound), and in electrostatic fields etc [albeit that in the latter likes repel].
However, I’ve discovered another example – which may even be an example of an inverse cube law … namely, the effect you experience when you’re away from home – yet traveling there – and you need to go to the toilet!
There you are …
# 20 miles from home, and you know you want to go, but you’re fine; although you wonder why you didn’t, um, ‘go’ before you left.
# 10 miles to run – pretty much the same kind of feeling – still wondering whether it would have been wiser to have ‘done the business’ before you departed.
# 5 miles to run – getting just a little bit more aware of your bowels now!
# Hitting the town limits – you start feeling a bit more uncomfortable, but, at the same time, you feel like you could hold on for quite a lot longer – if required to!!
# Turning into the street – you start whistling, and wriggling your legs to and fro: beads of sweat suddenly appear on your forehead for no apparent reason, and, all of a sudden, you wonder why your partner is driving so damn slow!!!
# Trying to unlock the front door as efficiently/smoothly as possible (which never works – you know this – but, nonetheless, you still try it!) – getting pretty desperate (thinks – ‘am I going to crap myself?’)!!!!!
# Slapping on the lights as you run through the darkness to the toilet – you’re really doubting that you’ll be able to hold out until you drop your pants – still, as you run, and in preparation, you fight with your belt buckle!!!!!!!
# In the toilet (at last!), your guts are making groaning sounds (sod closing the door, sod turning on the light, sod being embarrassed about what your partner will think about the noise and smell that’s going to be oh so obvious in a second’s time.
# The forces acting between your arse, and the ‘lavatorial event horizon’, feel like they’ve reached infinity, and you nearly crap yourself as you try, in one fluid move, to drop your pants, lift the seat, and ‘release’ your clenched, aching buttocks (interestingly, so much is the attraction of one for the other that, if you’re skilled, this all happens before your arse actually ‘touches down’)!!!!!!!
2 seconds elapse …
# You thank God, swear never to be bad again, and you ponder: whether the sensation you’ve just experienced was better than an orgasm?
Following on from Punctuation Counts, I’ve just received the most obvious and inept phishing attempt via email -
Naff, grainy Abbey logo [must try harder!], mysterious weird character inserted just below it, horrible bold/Times typeface used throughout; and dreadful grammar!
Taking just the first bit
“Abbey National Plc in its financial policy to ensure effective banking system of it’s customer”
Shouldn’t it be something more like … well, as it’s it basically unintelligible, I don’t know where to start in correcting it.
Then there’s the two instances of it’s where its should have been – grrrrrr
Honestly, if anyone falls for this they’ll be the type of people I’d want to fall for it!
Following on from My Brain – and Harriet’s observation that Amazon’s logo ‘says’ A->Z, I wonder how many other too subtle company logos are out there! Too subtle because while – now that it’s been pointed out to me – Amazon’s logo is pretty cool, I wonder whether they get a decent return on whatever sum of money it was that they paid whomever it was that designed it? Of course, it could just be me – like, did you notice it was an A-Z [as well as a smile-thingmy]?
Having spent the New Year 2007/2008 in France – and having witnessed the French law banning smoking in public places come into force at the stroke of midnight – I was somewhat amused that, the following Wednesday; whilst I was stood outside of the Fiery Angel in Cheltenham, having a smoke (and complaining about the law in the UK); someone spoke up and said “We should do what the French did: when the law came in there, they just ignored it!”
I didn’t point out that this was incorrect [the chap obviously thought the French law came into force some years earlier], and anyway, having talked to a few waiters in France about whether or not French would honour the new law; and being told in no uncertain terms that they would – the fines for non-compliance are rather hefty apparently – well, I somehow felt that a ‘correction’ would fall on deaf ears.
Ξ January 8th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Dance |
Having discovered Ceroc, I’m now thinking of buying some dancing shoes – which *need* to be ‘spat style’ – you know, like those ’20s gangsters with violin cases wore [in the movies].
I love this – which I saw in Eats Shoots and Leaves:
Peet: I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy–will you let me be yours? Jo
And again with different punctuation:
Peet: I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be? Yours, Jo
I went to France over New Year and discovered that the Carrefour chain’s logo isn’t what I thought it was – it’s a big Letter C
When I was young, Carrefour opened a store in Telford – where I lived at the time – and I always saw their logo as a red arrow with a blue arrow-like thing pointing the other way. However, in France I suddenly noticed that it was a letter C – weird!
This all reminds me of how I saw Superman – in that I never saw a large S on his chest, but odd shaped yellow bits! It was only after someone told me it was an S that I could actually see it. Weirder!
