From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:tektronix!tekid!jerryp Newsgroups: net.jokes Title: Science terms Webster never told you Article-I.D.: tekid.795 Posted: Tue Feb 1 08:36:59 1983 Received: Thu Feb 3 06:33:17 1983 A (FAIRLY) CONCISE SCIENCE DICTIONARY .... tidbits from what Webster never told you APHASIA (n.) Loss of speech in OMNISCIENCE (n.) Talking only social scientists when asked about things you know about. at parties, "But of what use is your research?" PARANOIA (n.) A healthy under- standing of the nature of the ARITHMETIC (n.) An obscure art universe. no longer practiced in the world's developed countries. QUARK (n.) The sound made by a well-bred duck. CHEMICALS (n. pl.) Noxious substances from which modern ROBOT (n.) University adminis- foods are made. trator. EXPERT (n.) Self-publicist. THEORY (n.) System of ideas meant to explain something, GENIUS (n.) Person clever chosen with a view to ori- enough to be born in the right ginality, controversialism, place at the right time of the incomprehensibility, and how right sex and to follow up good it will look in print. this advantage by saying all the right things to all the UNIVERSITY (n.) Institution right people. where people incapacitated by an intellectual disposition GOD (n.) Darwin's chief rival. can be put out of society's way. HARD (a.) The quality of your own data; also how it is to VACUUM (n.) A state abhorred believe those of other people. by Nature. INDEX (n.) Alphabetical list WEAPON (n.) An index of the of words of no possible lack of development of a cul- interest where an alphabetical ture. list of subjects with refer- ences ought to be. YO-YO (n.) Something that is occasionally up but normally JOKE (n.) The science budget. down (see also COMPUTER). Like many other jokes of the present Government (such as ZEAL (n.) Quality seen in new inflation and unemployment) graduates -- if you're quick. this one is based on the theory "You've got to laugh or you'll go mad." KNOWLEDGE (n.) Things you believe. NEUTRON BOMB (n.) An explosive device of limited military value because, as it only des- troys people without destroy- ing property, it must be used in conjunction with bombs that destroy property. >From the "New Scientist", London, excerpted in the February 1983 "World Press Review". --Jerry Peek ...decvax!tektronix!tekid!jerryp or ...ucbvax!tektronix!tekid!jerryp Tektronix, Inc. Beaverton, OR