A Guide to Effective Scientific Communication

 
 Phrase                         Translation
 =================================================================
 It has long been known         I haven't bothered to look up the 
                                reference
 
 It is believed                 I think
 
 It is generally believed       A couple of other guys think so too
 
 It is not unreasonable to      If you believe this, you'll believe
 assume                         anything
 
 Of great theoretical           I find it kind of interesting
 importance
 
 Of great practical importance  I can get some mileage out of it
 
 Typical results are shown      The best results are shown
 
 3 samples were chosen for      The others didn't make sense, so 
 further study                  we ignored them
 
 The 4 hour sample was not      I dropped it on the floor
 studied
 
 The 4 hour determination may   I dropped it on the floor, but 
 not be significant             scooped most of it up
 
 The significance of these      Look at the pretty artifact
 results is unclear
 
 It has not been possible to    The experiment was negative, but 
 provide definitive answers     at least I can publish the data
                                somewhere
 
 Correct within an order of     Wrong
 magnitude
 
 It might be argued that        I have such a good answer for this
                                objection that I shall now raise it
 
 Much additional work will be   This paper is not very good, but 
 required                       neither are all the others in this
                                miserable field
 
 These investigations proved    My grant is going to be renewed
 highly rewarding
 
 I thank X for assistance       X did the experiment and Y explained
 with the experiments and       it to me
 Y for useful discussions
 on the interperetation of
 the data