| | | | | | "pasteurized." (I see nothing wrong with that. If you can pasteurize milk, I presume that you can pasteurize the original container.) | | | | | | | | | In their own pastures, scientists are, of course, very expert, but they often succumb to pedantic, jargonistic, and useless expressions, telling the reader more than the reader wants or needs to know. As the English novelist George Eliot said: "Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of this fact." | | | | | | | | | If you must show off your marvelous vocabulary, make sure you use the right words. I like the story that Lederer (1987) told about NASA scientist Wernher von Braun. "After one of his talks, von Braun found himself clinking cocktail glasses with an adoring woman from the audience. | | | | | | | | | " 'Dr. von Braun,' the woman gushed, 'I just loved your speech, and I found it of absolutely infinitesimal value!' | | | | | | | | | " 'Well then,' von Braun gulped, 'I guess I'll have it published posthumously.' | | | | | | | | | " ' Oh yes !' the woman came right back. 'And the sooner the better.'" | | | | | | | | | I'm reminded of the two adventuresome hot-air balloonists who, slowly descending after a long trip on a cloudy day, looked at the terrain below and had not the faintest idea where they were. It so happens that they were drifting over the grounds of one of our more famous scientific research institutes. When the balloonists saw a man walking along the side of a road, one called out, "Hey, mister, where are we?" The man looked up, took in the situation, and, after a few moments of reflection, said, "You're in a hot-air balloon." One balloonist turned to the other and said, ''I'll bet that man is a scientist." The other balloonist said, "What makes you think so?" To which the first replied, "His answer is perfectly accurate and totally useless." | | | | |
