A Draft Glossary of Terms Used in Bionomenclature Research definitions (Bulletin of Entomological Research 1949)

The following phrases, frequently found in technical writings, are defined here for your edification and enlightenment. This list was plagiarised from some unknown genius who evidently had read one too many scientific papers.

"IT HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN..." - I haven t bothered to look up the original reference.

"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 a publication out of it.

"EXTREMELY HIGH PURITY - SUPER PURITY" Composition unknown except for the exaggerated claims of the supplier.

"THREE OF THE SAMPLES WERE CHOSEN FOR DETAILED STUDY" The results on the others didn t make sense and were ignored.

"ACCIDENTALLY STAINED DURING MOUNTING" Accidentally dropped on the floor.

"HANDLED WITH EXTREME CARE DURING THE EXPERIMENTS" Not dropped on floor.

"TYPICAL RESULTS ARE SHOWN" The best results are shown.

"PRESUMABLY AT LONGER TIMES" I didn t have the time to find out.

"THE 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 of mine

"IT IS BELIEVED THAT..." I think.

"IT IS GENERALLY BELIEVED THAT..." A couple of other guys think so 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 it.

"CORRECT WITHIN 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 JOE GLOTZ FOR ASSISTANCE WITH THE EXPERIMENT AND JOHN DOE FOR VALUABLE DISCUSSIONS" Glotz did the work and Doe explained what it mean.

Regards

Vratislav Richard Bejsak Coleoptera - Australia, Tenebrionidae of World Konevova 1658/110 130 00 Prague 3 Zizkov CZECH Rep. voice: (42+2) 270 849 fax : (41+2) 311 6545 email: 76711,1261 at compuserve.com (I am from Australia, this address is for one or two years)