| 1 | [[quoteright:345:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/textbook_humor.jpg]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:345:Help! I'm trapped in a dumpster that's trapped in a physics problem!]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ->''"It also has some daft bits in it to try and make the whole experience at least vaguely entertaining for you."'' |
| 5 | -->-- '''CGP Books''', ''Key Stage Two Science: The Important Bits'' |
| 6 | |
| 7 | Modern academic textbooks represent a curious duality. On the one hand, people expect them to be a clear, accurate and legitimate explication of the topics contained therein. It is expected that they are written by intelligent scholars with a clear grasp of the information, and the expected seriousness of the learning environment tends to lend an air of sobriety to the proceedings. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | On the other hand, many intelligent people are [[DeadpanSnarker snarky goofs]], and one of the main target audiences for these books is the snarky goofs of tomorrow. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | It is a bit of textbook prose, often appearing in the homework problems, that, while being entirely legitimate, suggests that the author doesn't mind a little breeziness in the discussion of the material, or at least recognizes the difficulty of immediate application of some of the concepts involved. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | A variant of this trope involves jokes sneaked into original research papers. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | Discovering one of these is almost guaranteed hilarity, and often subject to MemeticMutation inside the classroom. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | Related to EdutainmentShow and EasterEggs. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Problems will be left unanswered as an exercise for the reader. |
| 20 | ---- |
| 21 | !!Examples: |
| 22 | |
| 23 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 24 | |
| 25 | [[folder:Anthropology]] |
| 26 | * ''Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology'', discussing racist theories about the Moundbuilder people: |
| 27 | --> The dream of a lost prehistoric race in the American heartland was profoundly satisfying; and if the vanished ones had been giants, or white men, or Israelites, or Danes, or Toltecs, or [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs giant white Jewish Toltec Vikings]], so much the better. |
| 28 | * One image in ''Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective'' has the caption of: "Here is an American nuclear family comprised of mother, father, and two children. Please note that the [[WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants large yellow kid with the poor complexion]] is not a member of this nuclear family." |
| 29 | * Larsen's ''Essentials of Physical Anthropology'' has a section heading called [[AdHominem "Add Hominin?"]] |
| 30 | * ''Linking to the Past: A Brief Introduction to Archeology'' is MADE of this. Highlights include "We will assume there were no mutant deer with additional shoulder bones." and the story about "giant burrowing bees". |
| 31 | [[/folder]] |
| 32 | |
| 33 | [[folder:Biology]] |
| 34 | * ''Biology 9th Edition'' by Sylvia Mader has the following example to demonstrate fibrous proteins: "Fibrous proteins are structural proteins. Figure a. (a picture of Creator/DrewBarrymore) Keratin... is a hydrogen-bonded triple helix. In this photo, Drew Barrymore has straight hair. Figure b. (another picture of Drew Barrymore) In order to give her curly hair, water was used to disrupt the hydrogen bonds, and when the hair dried, new hydrogen bonding allowed it to take on the shape of a curler. A permanent-wave lotion induces new covalent bonds within the helix." |
| 35 | * There is a website for ''Biology Eighth Edition'' by Campbell and Reece. One of the practice test questions is about werewolves. |
| 36 | * Campbell and Reece's ''Biology Seventh Edition'' features an image of the textbook itself with the label "heavy object" in a depiction of the Southern blot procedure. It also notes that it is possible to hear the heartbeat by listening at the chest of a friend, specifying "a ''close'' friend." |
| 37 | * A Swedish textbook called "''Physiology with Relevant Anatomy''" had the following to say about the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems: "''Nervousness means increased activity in both the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic activity causes the diarrhea many students have right before the exam on physiology.''" |
| 38 | * The 2010 - 2011 Edition of ''Kaplan SAT Subject Test: Biology E/M'' provides this iota of humor in a practice test question: |
| 39 | -->Gypsy moths were brought to the United States about 150 years ago, in a misguided attempt to produce silk more cheaply. A few gypsy moth caterpillars were accidentally released in Massachusetts, and within 20 years they had infested local woodlands. Their descendants have since munched their way through forests across most of the country. |
| 40 | * ''[[http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072437316/student_view0/ Biology]]'' by Raven, Johnson, Losos, and Singer has a few examples. |
| 41 | ** The assessment at the end of a botany chapter tests students' understanding of plant tissues with this scenario: Your neighbor has planted a number of trees on your side of the property line. Which part of the trees' stems should you '''train your pet porcupines to attack''' in order to ensure the complete and rapid destruction of the offending plants? |
| 42 | ** Another question offers this as an answer choice: you are hallucinating, because it is impossible for the swing not to have gotten taller as the tree grew. |
| 43 | * The German medical dictionary Pschyrembel includes an article on the stone louse, a fictional mite from a comedy TV show by Creator/{{Loriot}} that consumes up to 28 kg of rock per day. |
| 44 | * The four Fs in biology. "The hypothalamus plays a major role in the regulation of basic biological drives related to survival, including the so-called 'four Fs': fighting, fleeing, feeding and mating." |
| 45 | * Each edition of ''Molecular Biology of the Cell'' has a picture of the authors recreating a [[Music/TheBeatles Beatles]] album cover on the back. |
| 46 | [[/folder]] |
| 47 | |
| 48 | [[folder:Chemistry]] |
| 49 | * "Resonance contributors, like unicorns and dragons, are imaginary, not real. Only the resonance hybrid, like the rhinoceros, is real." (p. 292, ''Organic Chemistry Fifth Edition'', Paula Yurkanis Bruce). |
| 50 | * John W. Lehman's ''Multiscale Operational Organic Chemistry'' has a made-up situation for each lab exercise. Most of them are pretty normal, but a few have references to things like [[Creator/HPLovecraft Miskatonic University]] and flooded cemeteries contaminating the water supply, and one of them goes something like: "A despot king is designing a new flag for his country. He has assigned you the task of creating an orange dye based on a red dye created by the last scientist he employed. If you fail, you will be beheaded." |
| 51 | ** The same also mentions the imaginary hydrocarbons "entane" and "orctane" in the section on simple distillation. "Presumably entane and orctane exist only in [[Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth]], where they are used for fuel by ents and orcs respectively." (Best of all: the ents and orcs ''did'' have distinctive drinks that no one else knew how to make!) |
| 52 | * Introductory chemistry textbooks will occasionally contain a sample dilution problem along the lines of "50 mL of 40% ethanol (by volume) is mixed with 0.25 kg of a 75% water (by weight), 25% particulate solution. Calculate the mass fraction of the ethanol." Which will be instinctively familiar to college students, as famous 40% ethanol solutions include most forms of liquor and most sugared soft drinks are about 2/3 water and 1/3 sugar and flavouring agents--so this problem is basically asking you, "How strong is that mixed drink you're making this evening?"[[note]]By the by, the amounts are approximately one (US) shot of liquor to approximately one cup of mixer, so not very.[[/note]] |
| 53 | * ''Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes'' has a particular exercise in its third chapter that brutally deconstructs a certain scene from ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'', where Augustus Gloop falls into the chocolate river. The questions it asks essentially boils down to "what would it actually feel like to be stuck there, and why was the last time this happened in real life fatal?" Allegedly, this question serves as the de-facto hazing ritual for ''every'' chemical engineering student that has to use this textbook. |
| 54 | [[/folder]] |
| 55 | |
| 56 | [[folder:Computing]] |
| 57 | * ''ANYTHING'' referencing '''P'''ython, '''P'''erl, or '''P'''HP '''O'''bject '''O'''riented '''P'''rogramming will reduce all but the most serious, mature, or oblivious to at least one [[ToiletHumor POOP joke]]. |
| 58 | * Andrew Tanenbaum's "Computer Network Fundamentals": "Because there is only one way to reduce 'HELLO' to four letters without summoning the wrath of Christian activists, all SMTP conversations begin with 'HELO'". |
| 59 | * A small one that can be found in most computer science textbooks is fairly simple. Going to the index usually reveals entries similar to the following: |
| 60 | -->'''Recursion''': see ''recursion'' |
| 61 | |
| 62 | --> '''Infinite Loop''': see ''Loop'', ''Infinite'' |
| 63 | -->'''Loop, Infinite''': see ''Infinite'' ''Loop'' |
| 64 | * The first edition of Donald Knuth's ''The Art of Computer Programming'' blithely inserts UsefulNotes/FermatsLastTheorem into the book's ''introduction'' as an example of a question with a difficulty of "M50" (50 being the maximum, with the M standing for "special mathematical knowledge required"). After Wiles published his proof, Knuth promptly changed it to "M45" in the second edition. |
| 65 | ** The final exercise Knuth's ''The [=TeXbook=]'', Exercise 27.5, instructs us, "Find all of the lies in this manual, and all of the jokes." Its answer in Appendix A: "If this exercise isn't just a joke, the title of this appendix is a lie." |
| 66 | * Networks and Systems is one of the most dreaded subjects for aspiring electrical engineering students in the Budapest University of Technology and Economics taught by people known for not taking prisoners. Deeper understanding of the theory [[DealWithTheDevil is aided]] by [[ArtifactOfDoom a textbook]] containing exactly [[NumberOfTheBeast six hundred and sixty-six]] exercises. |
| 67 | * ''Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach'' by Sturart Russell and Peter Norvig has quite a sense of humor at times. For example: |
| 68 | ** Page 39 (in the third edition) talks about AI agent learning, using examples of dung beetle and sphex wasp behavior as analogies. In the back of the book, this is referenced in the index with an entry which reads "[[Creator/DavidLetterman stupid pet tricks]], 39". |
| 69 | ** To illustrate the difference between rationality and perfection, the book uses a hypothetical scenario in which the author tries to cross the street, but a door falls off an airplane above and lands on him in the middle of the street. This contains a [[FootnoteFever footnote]] referencing a news article about doors falling out of Boeing 747s. Additionally, the book proceeds to sarcastically suggest developing crystal balls or time machines to achieve perfection. |
| 70 | ** In the section on neural networks, most of a page is devoted to deriving the back-propagation equations "in gory detail", basically an airtight proof of two "rules obtained earlier from intuitive considerations." Immediately following the end of the derivation, the next paragraph starts with "Having made it through (or skipped over) all the mathematics..." |
| 71 | * ''Common Lisp: The Language'' by Guy L. Steele, Jr. contains several humorous examples: |
| 72 | ** [[http://web.archive.org/web/20100716140617/http://www.ida.liu.se/imported/cltl/clm/node155.html A hash table]] containing members of both Music/TheTurtles and the WesternAnimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|1987}}. |
| 73 | ** Speaking of ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'', another part of the ThemeTune is rephrased in terms of [[http://web.archive.org/web/20100716125813/http://www.ida.liu.se/imported/cltl/clm/node248.html conditional clauses in a looping construct.]] The use of an "else" clause with "unless" likely plays on the double negative of "don't cut no slack." |
| 74 | ** [[http://web.archive.org/web/20100716163049/http://www.ida.liu.se/imported/cltl/clm/node105.html A comparison routine]] which performs type-checking on arguments named "apples" and "oranges". |
| 75 | ** A variable named [[Series/GetSmart "maxwell"]] initialized to 86 and, though [[http://web.archive.org/web/20100716163049/http://www.ida.liu.se/imported/cltl/clm/node105.html locally declared to be an integer,]] surreptitiously allowed to assume the value [[Film/JamesBond .007]] for the duration spent viewing the movie ''Film/TheSoundOfMusic''. |
| 76 | ** An elaborate StealthPun on the round "Row, row, row your boat," using functions named 'gently', 'row', 'life' and 'dream' (not defined) and a predefined I/O stream to illustrate [[http://web.archive.org/web/20110513111858/http://www.ida.liu.se/imported/cltl/clm/node96.html an important restriction on non-local exits]]: "once you have begun to catch a crab, you cannot rely on being able to catch your breath." |
| 77 | ** Sequence searching routines used to test [[FunWithPalindromes palindromes]], including [[http://web.archive.org/web/20100716124943/http://www.ida.liu.se/imported/cltl/clm/node145.html a much longer version]] of "A man, a plan, a canal--Panama!" |
| 78 | ** [[http://web.archive.org/web/20100716135355/http://www.ida.liu.se/imported/cltl/clm/node174.html "Because a constructor of this type operates By Order of Arguments, it is sometimes known as a BOA constructor."]] Unfortunately, when the standard was revised to allow constructor functions to have keyword arguments which could occur in any order, "BOA constructor" became an ArtifactTitle. |
| 79 | ** The entire contents of the book are cited in the index as "kludges" (programmer-speak for a messy, hard-to-read bit of code which works but isn't very nice to look at). |
| 80 | * Most textbooks for the Python programming language, as well as the online Python documentation, make numerous references to its [[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus namesake]]: |
| 81 | -->'''if x == 1:''' |
| 82 | --->print('spam') |
| 83 | -->'''else:''' |
| 84 | --->print('eggs') |
| 85 | * A group of MIT researchers published a paper on how to fix the problem of speech recognition software producing nonsensical mondegreens, using "common sense" word associations. They titled the paper [[http://web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/Publications/Wreck-a-Nice-Beach.pdf "How to Wreck a Nice Beach You Sing Calm Incense."]] (Translation: [[spoiler:How to Recognize Speech Using Common Sense]].) |
| 86 | * ''Programming Perl'' has a lot of camel jokes, and also an example of how to assign the value 6.02 × 10[[superscript:23]] to a variable with the PunnyName [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro_constant "avocados."]] The first "Porter Efficiency" suggestion: "Wave a handsome tip under his nose." |
| 87 | * "[=CompTIA=] A+ Certification All-In-One Exam Guide, Ninth Edition" by Mike Meyers, gives us this gem while explaining in general terms the steps of setting up biometric devices: |
| 88 | -->Register your identity with the device by sticking your eye, finger, or other unique body part (Why are you snickering?) into the device so it can scan you. |
| 89 | * ''The Little [=LISPer=]'' is a primer on LISP programming and gourmandizing. Many of the example lists are lists of foods, and one of the chapters ends with a recipe for cookies formatted as LISP pseudocode. Directions to eat things are fairly frequent, including one printed at the foot of a page in large type: "Go [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cons cons]] a piece of cake onto your mouth." (However, the references to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currying curry]] in the penultimate chapter are not another food joke.) |
| 90 | * The glossary of Joan Hughes' ''PL/I Structured Programming'' defines "Optimist" as "A programmer who codes in ink." |
| 91 | * Because Novell's ''CNE Study Guide for [=NetWare=] 4.1'' contains a plot (really), author David James Clarke came off as somewhat of a LemonyNarrator in certain cases. For instance, the chapter on installing [=NetWare=] begins on a Monday where everything has gone wrong so far, and suddenly "your boss dumps a menacing red box on your desk. (...) You quickly review your options: Filing a request for an immediate medical leave due to stress; Pawning off the job to some other unsuspecting victim; Giving the installation a shot." |
| 92 | * The O'Reilly book on "Programming Rust" (by Jim Blandy and Jason Orendorff) casually drops the following sentence while demonstrating rendering the Mandelbrot set: "The infinite loop takes a while to run, but there are two tricks for the impatient." |
| 93 | * The book ''Code for Teens'' by Jeremy Moritz [[https://reddit.com/r/miraculousladybug/comments/acqkl2/so_i_was_reading_through_my_coding_book_when/ includes]] [[https://reddit.com/r/zelda/comments/abeyim/my_coding_book_knows_how_to_get_my_attention/ references]] to ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' and ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''. Apparently, the author got the references from his sons. |
| 94 | * The Zybooks Computer Architecture course has this in section 5.2: |
| 95 | -->Anyone who has done a lot of laundry has intuitively used pipelining. The ''non-pipelined'' approach to laundry would be as follows:\ |
| 96 | 1. Place one dirty load of clothes in the washer.\ |
| 97 | 2. When the washer is finished, place the wet load in the dryer.\ |
| 98 | 3. When the dryer is finished, place the dry load on a table and fold.\ |
| 99 | 4. When folding is finished, [[LazyBum ask your roommate to put the clothes away]]. |
| 100 | [[/folder]] |
| 101 | |
| 102 | [[folder:Economics]] |
| 103 | * Paul Krugman, known at least as much for his acerbic and usually hilarious political opinion columns (in ''[[UsefulNotes/AmericanNewspapers The New York Times]]'') as for the economics work that won him a [[ArtisticLicenseAwards Nobel Prize]], is noted for this kind of thing. |
| 104 | ** Paul Krugman's and Robin Wells's ''Microeconomics'' has some great examples: |
| 105 | *** The explanation of the production possibility frontier uses two people named [[Creator/TomHanks Tom and Hank]] [[Film/CastAway on an isolated island]] as an example. |
| 106 | *** From a problem also involving the production possibility frontier: "In the ancient country of Roma, only two goods, spaghetti and meatballs, are produced. There are two tribes in Roma, the Tivoli and the Frivoli." |
| 107 | *** From a discussion of consumer budget constraints: "Consider Sammy, whose appetite is exclusively for clams and potatoes (there's no accounting for tastes)." |
| 108 | ** Krugman's ''International Economics'' with Maurice Obstfeld included a box about a dispute about banana quotas in the European Union titled "Do trade preferences have appeal?" and containing the sentence "At the time of writing, efforts to negotiate a resolution to Europe's banana split had proved fruitless." Sadly, the dispute has been resolved and the text will have to be deleted. Krugman later told an interviewer that this line was the favorite thing he had ever written. |
| 109 | ** Krugman also has an academic paper called [[http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf "The Theory of Interstellar Trade,"]] exploring the implications of special relativity for trade between different planets. In addition to the generally ridiculous premise, it includes quite a few deadpan one-liners like: "These complications make the theory of interstellar trade appear at first quite alien to our usual trade models; presumably it seems equally human to alien trade theorists." |
| 110 | *** Despite seeming initially to be utterly absurd, Krugman [[DidntSeeThatComing actually highlights some genuinely valid concerns that would arise in interstellar trade]], [[DidntThinkThisThrough namely the effects of Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity (specifically, time-distortion) and how it would potentially affect the way one would calculate shipping-time for billing]]. |
| 111 | *** It's also chock full of snarky jokes and {{Shout Out}}s. (A merchant from [[Literature/{{Foundation}} Trantor]], anyone?) |
| 112 | * Even economics' dull younger sibling accounting does this occasionally. One accountancy textbook used for TAFE courses in Australia contains a chapter in which nearly all the examples are ''Franchise/StarTrek'' references. |
| 113 | * Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok's ''Principles of Macroeconomics'': one of the online versions quizzes has a series of questions beginning with [[Film/PulpFiction Jules wants to purchase a royale with cheese (a type of sandwich), from Vincent.]] |
| 114 | * [[https://docplayer.se/5007970-Uppgift-1-i-kalkyldifferens.html One Swedish textbook]] features some examples of cost variance problems. The first 2 problems feature made-up companies creating products with mildly punny names, but the third centers around the protagonists from the children's puppet series ''Rummel och Rabalder'' accidentally ending up in "the nunnery of evil" and being forced to make carpet beaters for "the mean nun" if they want to be released. |
| 115 | -->According to their agreement, the nun would be responsible for materials, while the rats would be responsible for production. The rats were only promised 3 cheese puffs per work hour to survive, which was not considered a "wicked amount of puffs". |
| 116 | [[/folder]] |
| 117 | |
| 118 | [[folder:English]] |
| 119 | * [[http://www.chompchomp.com/terms.htm This website,]] which explains English grammar, has a few rather strange example sentences. From the article on modifiers: |
| 120 | -->''Poor Stephen, who just wanted a quick meal to get through his three-hour biology lab, quickly dropped his fork on the cafeteria tray, gagging with disgust as a tarantula wiggled out of his cheese omelet, a sight requiring a year of therapy before Stephen could eat eggs again.'' |
| 121 | * OlderThanRadio: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Johnson%27s_Dictionary Dr Johnson]] inserted some "easter eggs" into his Dictionary. Part of Website/TheOtherWiki article details some of this concealed wit. |
| 122 | * The ''[[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers Guardian]]'' and ''Observer'' [[https://www.theguardian.com/info/series/guardian-and-observer-style-guide style guide]] is chock-full of snark, aimed at any and all: |
| 123 | -->"'''Botox''' a brand name; botulinum toxin is normally more appropriate in copy, although we recognise that the temptation for headline writers to say "Never mind the Botox" may sometimes prove irresistible"\ |
| 124 | "'''canal boats''' [...] The difference between narrowboat and barge is important, particularly if you don’t want to get stuck in a narrow lock somewhere outside Birmingham"\ |
| 125 | "'''cannabis''' people smoke cannabis rather than "experiment" with it, despite what politicians and young members of the royal family might claim" |
| 126 | ** This includes a fair bit of SelfDeprecation regarding the "Grauniad"'s reputation for sloppy spelling and grammar: |
| 127 | --->"'''affect/effect''' exhortations in the style guide had no effect (noun) on the number of mistakes; the level of mistakes was not affected (verb) by exhortations in the style guide; we hope to effect (verb) a change in this"\ |
| 128 | "'''ancestors''' precede descendants; we frequently manage to get them the wrong way round"\ |
| 129 | "'''burgher''' citizen, not to be confused with burger (although we have contrived to do so more than once)" |
| 130 | |
| 131 | [[/folder]] |
| 132 | |
| 133 | [[folder:History]] |
| 134 | * A world history textbook had the line, "But the French had one resource that the rest of the world did not: The Beaver." There is simply no way that was unintentional. |
| 135 | * P. J. Heather's ''The Fall of the Roman Empire'' is a scholarly account of the late Roman Empire and surrounding regions, with a tendency to title its sections things like "Rome is where the heart is" and "[[Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier Thrace: The Final Frontier]]". |
| 136 | * ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_History:_A_Survey American History: A Survey]]'' by Alan Brinkley has only one author, and so he is completely free to work in the occasional [[{{Irony}} verbally ironic]] phrase. Example (pg. 203): |
| 137 | -->''Hamilton accused Burr of plotting treason and made numerous private remarks, widely reported in the press, about Burr's "despicable" character.'' |
| 138 | ** Furthermore, the only possible reason for including the [[FunWithAcronyms Southern Tenant Farmers' Union]] in a list of Depression-era labor unions that could have included dozens of other ones is a desire to induce tittering in high school and college history courses. This is backed up by the fact that Brinkley has apparently received large numbers of letters regarding the issue over the years and never once changed the reference despite many opportunities to do so (a new edition comes out every 4 years or so). |
| 139 | * A textbook used in Advanced Placement US history classes, ''The American Pageant'', has a fair dose of this. To paraphrase: "The initial attempts at colonization of the Americas failed miserably, causing suffering for all except the buzzards." |
| 140 | ** The same book uses countless amounts of [[PurpleProse strange, elaborate metaphors]] in order to explain simple things: |
| 141 | --->"Seemingly the farmer had only to tickle the soil with a hoe, and it would laugh with a harvest."\ |
| 142 | "Yet delay seemed dangerous, for the claws of the British lion might snatch the ripening California fruit from the talons of the American eagle."\ |
| 143 | "Americans did not feel that they could offend their great and good friend, the tsar, by hurling his walrus-covered icebergs back into his face."\ |
| 144 | "Kaiser Wilhelm, with his villainously upturned mustache..." |
| 145 | * One AP US History textbook, ''Out of Many'' is absolutely hilarious, and includes little things like, "Ludicrous in life, possibly insane, [[WellIntentionedExtremist John Brown]]...," a detailed explanation of family planning in the late 1800's using "coitus interruptus", "mechanical methods such as the condom", and "apparently voters didn't care about Bill Clinton's sex life". |
| 146 | * A textbook used for sixth formers in the UK took great pleasure in explaining just why so many aristocratic Russian women fell for Rasputin. "This is known as 'liking a bit of rough'." |
| 147 | * ''Government in America'' by Edwards, Wattenberg, and Lineberry says that old people watch more news on the television and therefore "if you have ever turned on the TV news and wondered why all the commercials seem to be for Geritol, laxatives, or denture cream, now you know why." |
| 148 | * ''The American Nation'' by John A. Garraty provides a paragraph of exposition on how Nicholas Trist and Winfield Scott were initially hostile, and only became friends after one gave the other a jar of guava marmalade. |
| 149 | * For the TAPPS 2011 social studies competition, the script of ''Film/{{Apollo 13}}'' is included as supplementary material, with footnotes noting differences between the script and real life. One footnote says: [Here is how the movie departs from the actual mission: Jim Lovell's Corvette was actually blue.] It seems odd including Lovell's Corvette as an actual part of the mission. |
| 150 | * ''The Making of England'' by C. Warren Hollister mentions that the author's cat is named after "the fervent, uncompromising St. Wilfrid of Ripon," but has a much more pleasant disposition than the saint. Later Hollister notes, "Historians have always found it tempting to describe instances of [[CorruptChurch larcenous bishops, gluttonous priests]], and [[NaughtyNuns licentious nuns]]. I have no intention of resisting that temptation." |
| 151 | * ''American Government'' by James Q. Wilson and John J. [=DiIulio=], Jr. (used in American AP Government/Politics classes) has a surprising number of subtle examples. |
| 152 | ** "The governor of Massachusetts asked the Continental Congress to send troops to suppress the rebellion, but it could not raise the money or the manpower. Then he turned to his own state militia, only to discover that he did not have one." |
| 153 | ** Also when referring to the Thomas Jefferson quote "A little rebellion is a good thing, for the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants", the text reads: "Clinton shared Jefferson's views. Whether Clinton would have agreed about the virtues of spilled blood, especially his, is another matter entirely." |
| 154 | ** "The talkative and party-loving (81 year old) Benjamin Franklin..." |
| 155 | * A question in a review book for the AP World History exam a few years back asked "Why were the launch of Sputnik and the flight of Yuri Gagarin seen as so threatening by the west?" with one possible wrong answer being "Both Sputnik and Gagarin's spaceship carried advanced laser weaponry." |
| 156 | * An AP European History textbook includes gems such as a mention of the French Army having "adventures in Mexico," and of Hitler "dancing with glee." |
| 157 | * Another such exam guide, (Princeton, 2009 ed.) had this TakeThat to just about every AP Euro student ever: |
| 158 | --> Back in 1505, [Martin Luther] was caught in a thunderstorm and a bolt of lightning struck near him. He cried out, "St. Anne help me; I will become a monk." Unlike many of you who will make many promises to God for help on your AP Exam, Luther kept his promise and joined the Augustinian order. |
| 159 | * ''Give Me Liberty!'' by Eric Foner frequently enters DeadpanSnarker mode while talking about how many Americans championed for liberty while denying the same liberty to minorities, like its dry comment that "Louisiana's slaves had enjoyed far more freedom under the rule of tyrannical Spain than as part of the liberty-loving United States" or its parenthetical aside on how "Georgia in 1861 passed a law making [continued loyalty to the Union] punishable by death (hardly the action of a government committed to individual liberty and the rights of minorities)." |
| 160 | [[/folder]] |
| 161 | |
| 162 | [[folder:Language]] |
| 163 | * The Literature/CambridgeLatinCourse is ''full'' of innuendos. Cambridge Latin students will single each other out by yelling, "Grumio ancillam delectat!" ("Grumio pleases the slave-girl.") Then there are places just asking for high school Latin students to yell "Oh, [[ImaginedInnuendo is that what they're calling it now]]?!" ("And then he had a three hour conversation with Agricola...") |
| 164 | ** Not to mention the story of Amicus, the friend of the main family who spends his time staring at statues of nude young men with his hand in his toga and putting his arm around Quintus, a teenager, who looks vaguely uncomfortable at this turn of events. |
| 165 | ** There are also some stories that are just funny, like the one where Clemens sets a sacred cat on some mobsters who are trying to run him out of business (and the guy runs a ''pottery store''), or the one where Quintus saves Clemens and Grumio from a mad dog by running up and ''punching it in the face''. |
| 166 | * ''[[http://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-Transitive-Vampire-Handbook-Innocent/dp/0679418601 The Deluxe Transitive Vampire]]'' is a grammar book built entirely around this. |
| 167 | * The entire point of ''Moetan''. Maybe. Depending on your sense of humor. |
| 168 | * Linguistics textbooks sometimes contain [[ARareSentence very odd example sentences]]. One technical book on semantics was nearly withdrawn from publication because it contained sentences like "They're going to kill a hippie for Reagan", others insulting Spiro Agnew and UsefulNotes/RichardNixon, and still others full of BlackComedy about topics like seduction, slave trade, and [=STDs=] (which were considered potentially libelous because they included the first names of then-current political figures). |
| 169 | ** Some linguistics books are also laden with NewspaperComics tangentially related to the principles discussed. |
| 170 | ** The textbook ''Language Files'' [[ArcWords repeatedly]] uses the sentence "There is a platypus in the bathtub". |
| 171 | ** Then there's [[http://books.google.com/books?id=DObARq3r9MoC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=morphof-104inglogical&source=web&ots=MQ9cyQtUMi&sig=Tdi7DhdRy_I3hrRIKueV58oVTcI&hl=en#v=onepage&q=morphof-104inglogical&f=false this textbook]] using examples of "infixes" (actually tmesis, strictly speaking) in English such as "absofuckinglutely".[[note]]Justified in that the English language has ''very'' few infixes, with the vulgar example given being among the most common.[[/note]] |
| 172 | ** Still more [[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2567 here,]] plus a link to this very page! |
| 173 | ** "[[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush George]] [[LoveTriangle loves Laura]] [[AmbiguousSyntax more than]] [[HoYay Dick.]]" |
| 174 | ** You can find an entire collection of bizarre sentences from both foreign-language and linguistics texts at [[http://lingsamplesentences.tumblr.com/ this blog.]] Such as "the robot shoots the ghost" and "I squash them with my penis." |
| 175 | * William Lycan's ''Philosophy of Language'' contains several examples: |
| 176 | ** One example sentence (intended to demonstrate our instant comprehension of [[ARareSentence novel sentences]]): ''[[LittleKnownFacts Not many people know that]] in 1931, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler made a visit to the United States, in the course of which he did some sightseeing, had a brief affair with a lady named Maxine in Keokuk, Iowa, tried peyote ([[MushroomSamba which caused him to hallucinate hordes of frogs and toads wearing little boots and singing Horst Wessel Lied]]), infiltrated a munitions plant near Detroit, met secretly with Vice-President Curtis regarding sealskin futures, and invented the electric can opener.''; |
| 177 | ** Another example refers to a philosopher who moonlights as a writer of "cheap, disgusting pornography", including something called ''Sizzling Veterinarians''; |
| 178 | ** A footnote tells readers "No, sorry, you will have to get [[NoodleIncident that story]] from Russell's biographers". |
| 179 | * The French textbook "Une Fois Pour Toute" (Once and for all) had a chapter devoted to forming negative sentences (never, will not, and the like). All the sentences it used for examples were really negative, such as "I'm not sorry you're sick." or "I never want to see you again." |
| 180 | * ''An Introduction to Language, 9th Edition'' by Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams has some rather odd sample sentences. The best is an example of sentence structure in the form of a mild (and inaccurate) ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'' spoiler: "The girl Professor Snape loved married the man of her dreams". |
| 181 | * Creator/EugeneIonesco, well-known [[{{Absurdism}} absurdist]] playwright, somehow got himself hired to write the dialogues for a first-year French textbook, ''Mise en Train''. As demonstrated above, many foreign language textbook dialogues already border on Textbook Humor, albeit unintentionally. Ionesco simply turned it up a notch. |
| 182 | ** Ionesco's distinct style of absurdism owes a great deal to the innate weirdness of learning a foreign language from textbooks. ''Theatre/TheBaldSoprano'', his first and best known play, is a prime example. Its plot (Using the term lightly) revolves around the Smiths and the Martins, their maid and the local fireman (also the maid's lover) telling each other meaningless facts about their lives. The original name was even "English Without Toil." The dialogues from his French textbook were also adapted into a set of short plays. |
| 183 | * The college-level Spanish textbook ''Puntos de Partida: An Invitation to Spanish, 4th Edition'' by Knorre, Dorwick, Glass, and Villarreal has an interesting addition in its glossary appendix, not present anywhere else in the text: "narcosatánico/a - Satanic drug-user". |
| 184 | * [[http://i.imgur.com/jz1kj.jpg This page from a German-English phrasebook.]] |
| 185 | * Tae Kim's guide to Japanese, being a slightly colloquial Internet-based text, features some pretty wacky lines, particularly in learning expressions as "should" and "must": "You must not marry a Korean!" "You have to marry a Korean!" |
| 186 | * ''Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek'' contains a gem of a sentence that translates to "Xerxes ordered his men to take the Greeks from behind." |
| 187 | * The French grammar book ''La Grammaire à l'ouvre'' contains, as an exercise, a series of questions to be translated into French to practice question formation. All of them are perfectly normal, such as "What time is it?" and "Which bus goes to town?" - except for question #2, which reads, "What are you doing with those knives? [[DeathGlare Why are you looking at me like that?]] [[OhCrap What did I ever do to offend you?]]" |
| 188 | * Henry Beard's ''Latin for All Occasions'' is entirely this. There's even an entire section for saying very insulting things to people, then give them a TactfulTranslation that [[BlatantLies really isn't what the phrase means]]. [[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Beard Here]] are a few examples. |
| 189 | * A Latin textbook from the early 1960s contained [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Motor_Bus this macaronic poem from 1914.]] |
| 190 | * The freshman Greek manual used at St. John's College includes English-language sentences like ''Leticia was looking for winkles on the rocks when she stubbed her toe on a whelk.'' On their own, they're innocuous enough, but in bulk they definitely seem like they're poking fun at St. John's' [[WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant general WASPiness]]. Some of the Greek sentences are also comical in translation, especially when your tutor or fellow classmate proudly declares "So basically you're saying, 'I hit on a man!'" |
| 191 | * The first-year German textbook "Kontakte: A Communicative Approach" sometimes uses cute little illustrations to help introduce vocabulary. In one chapter, the vocabulary in question is a list of car parts. The illustration for the trunk of the car features a shady-looking guy in a trenchcoat stuffing a suspicious object into the trunk of his car. The object looks awfully like a corpse wrapped in a tarp. |
| 192 | * Note that this book was published in 2014, so someone is obviously JustForFun/OneOfUs. ''Elementary New Testament Greek'', page 21: |
| 193 | --> These [passive voice] forms will ''ReverseThePolarity of action''... |
| 194 | * ''A Russian Course'' by Alexander Lipson and Steven Molinsky is stuffed with this. The practice dialogue for greetings is followed by the notation "awkward pause," then the dialogue for farewells. Another exercise covers "Four ways to avoid answering a question." Cassette tapes supplied listening material, including among other things a pompous choral anthem for a cement factory that celebrates cement the way Monty Python celebrated spam. Early readings outline the ways of shock-workers and loafers: "Shock-workers live well. In factories they work with enthusiasm. In parks they think about life. About what life? About life in factories. How do loafers live? At work they steal pencils. In parks they conduct themselves badly. Shock-workers are often cultured people. Cultured people read books. And they wash every day. Loafers are often uncultured people. As far as I know, uncultured people don't wash. Never? Yes, they never wash. And they like to smoke in trolleybuses." Later readings reach so far as the mysteries of the uncultured psyche ("I don't like to conduct myself badly. God only knows why I conduct myself badly. I'm not a bad person. *he weeps*") and the meanings of happiness and decadence ("Happiness is to sit by the Great Blinsk Sea and build hydroelectric power stations. Decadence is to lie on the beach by the Great Blinsk Swamp and watch television. In tuxedos"). |
| 195 | * Language learning app VideoGame/{{Duolingo}} has become known for its quirky sentences, like "[[ExtremeOmnivore A bed is food]]", [[CaptainObviousAesop I don't like dictatorships]]" and "[[HonestJohnsDealership I sell refrigerators, understand?]]" Blogs like "Only Useful Phrases" and "[[http://shit-duolingo-says.tumblr.com Shit Duolingo Says]]" chronicle the bizarre things the little green owl has made people translate. |
| 196 | * There must be one of these in James May's academic history, as he revealed on [[Series/TopGearUK an episode of Top Gear]] that the only German sentence he knows is "Aber ja, natürlich Hans naß ist. Er steht unter einem waßerfall." which translates to "''Naturally'' Hans is wet; he's standing under a waterfall." |
| 197 | [[/folder]] |
| 198 | |
| 199 | [[folder:Law]] |
| 200 | * Quite a tradition in the hypothetical cases given to law students. A model case on contract law will probably involve someone [[DealWithTheDevil contracting with]] [[LouisCypher Lucy Pharr]]. Some genuine examples from a lawblog include: [[Music/BobMarley can a confession of shooting the sheriff be admitted as evidence in a trial for murdering the deputy]]; and what crime, if any, would be committed by someone taking out a billboard with the words [[Film/ThePrincessBride "You killed my father. Prepare to die."]] |
| 201 | ** Real cases used in casebook examples often get into this--particularly books on torts, where the cases are often seemingly crazy to start with. One American torts book starts with not one but ''two'' cases in which a minor pulls a chair out from under someone and is found liable for battery,[[note]]Although in one case (''Ghassamieh v. Schafer'', a 1979 case from Maryland), the liability for battery was meaningless, as the statute of limitations on battery had passed and the case was on a negligence theory held to be waived because there was battery and the plaintiff hadn't argued a negligence theory at trial. Yes, the law is weird.[[/note]] and another includes one where a woman successfully sued a man for battery on account of giving her herpes (he hadn't told her he had the disease). One torts textbook illustrates how evidence can be used to show that a business ignored a hazard by comparing two cases of people [[BananaPeel slipping on a banana peel]].[[note]]In one, it was unknown how old the peel was; in the other, the peel was "black and gritty" and had clearly been there for some time. In the second case, it was clear that the business (a train station) had plenty of time to clean up the peel and prevent the slip.[[/note]] The compilers/editors tend to note this with the dry humor characteristic of today's lawyers and judges. |
| 202 | * Quite possibly an unintentional example from Germany: A famous - now infamous - example for first semester law students told the tale of the Negro "Bongo Zula" [sic!], who, while visiting our country, captured, cooked and ate a little girl but cannot be found guilty because he did not know our rites and customs. Said example was available in print until as late as 1990! |
| 203 | * A somewhat indirect example: In [[UsefulNotes/TheCommonLaw common-law]] countries, law students tend to learn via the casebook method--i.e. rather than have a textbook go through the principles of the law, the student is presented with actual appellate judicial decisions, plus a limited amount of commentary from the author/editors. Appellate judges are generally intelligent people, and they often run into cases that are (1) indescribably boring, (2) completely ridiculous, (3) involve ludicrous asshattery, (4) involve ludicrous douchebaggery, or (5) some combination of the above. Naturally, they insert dry humor into their opinions wherever possible. Certain judges are particularly noted for their dry humor; for instance, in contemporary American casebooks, Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo (of the New York Court of Appeals[[note]]Which is the highest court in the Empire State for historical reasons[[/note]] for most of his famous opinions,[[note]]He would later be appointed to the federal Supreme Court, but he wrote few significant opinions there; most of his most important decisions were at the state level[[/note]] which are famously terse and give off a distinctly "I-don't-have-time-for-this-sh**" vibe), Judge Richard Posner (of the UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}}-based federal Seventh Circuit, whose opinions are often included in casebooks because of his clear writing style and his association with the unique logic of the law and economics movement), Judge Alex Kozinski (of the Ninth Circuit, who famously wrote "[[SophisticatedAsHell The parties are advised to chill]]" in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattel_v._MCA_Records his most famous opinion]]), Justice Antonin Scalia (of the federal [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCourts Supreme Court]], whose opinions are often included in casebooks because even if you disagree with him he's pretty funny, and also did we mention he's a freakin' Supreme Court justice), Justice Elena Kagan (ditto, except that she's a liberal), and Justice John Paul Stevens (who held Kagan's seat before her appointment, and whose style is best described as "[[Radio/APrairieHomeCompanion Garrison Keillor]] as a jurist"[[note]]This is particularly odd, as Stevens' time on the Court saw Warren Burger and William Rehnquist--the former actually from Minnesota, the latter actually Swedish and from nearby Wisconsin--as Chief Justice, yet neither evinced the same kind of understated, common-sense-based Midwestern humor that the Chicagoan WASP Stevens did.[[/note]]) have earned reputations for opinions that lawyers, judges, and students love to read for the jokes/dry humor (and in Scalia's case, the inimitable snark). |
| 204 | * The opinion in the American bankruptcy law case ''In re Love'', 61 B.R. 558 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 1986) is written mostly in rhymed verse parodying Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's "The Raven." [=WestLaw=]'s synopsis and headnotes are written in the same style. |
| 205 | * Southwestern Law School (located in Los Angeles) Professor Caleb Mason published an academic paper in 2012 studying in-depth the legal implications with regards to the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment...of the second verse of Music/JayZ's "99 Problems". Long story short, the verse is largely correct in what's legal and what's not about the traffic stop being rapped about (the two main errors noted are that the cop asking Jay-Z to step out of the car is a valid order which Jay-Z can't legally refuse even without legal suspicion of wrongdoing, and that Jay-Z claims that the cop stopping him needs a warrant to search his car -- the cop would only need probable cause). |
| 206 | [[/folder]] |
| 207 | |
| 208 | [[folder:Logic]] |
| 209 | * Creator/LewisCarroll's ''Symbolic Logic'' demonstrates that logic is about the form and not the content of propositions by making the content as ridiculous as possible. |
| 210 | ** For example: |
| 211 | --->No terriers wander among the signs of the zodiac;\ |
| 212 | Nothing, that does not wander among the signs of the zodiac, is a comet;\ |
| 213 | Nothing but a terrier has a curly tail.\ |
| 214 | (The conclusion to be drawn is: [[spoiler:No comet has a curly tail.]]) |
| 215 | ** There's also his logic puzzle on babies and crocodiles that has been included as an example of conditional statements in at least one Geometry textbook (complete with a page image of a baby riding a crocodile!): |
| 216 | --->All babies are illogical.\ |
| 217 | Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile.\ |
| 218 | Illogical persons are despised.\ |
| 219 | (The conclusion to be drawn is: [[spoiler:If a person is a baby, then it cannot manage a crocodile.]]) |
| 220 | ** The entirety of [[http://www.ditext.com/carroll/tortoise.html What the Tortoise said to Achilles.]] Talk about AwesomenessByAnalysis. |
| 221 | * ''Sweet Reason'' by Jim Henle and James Garfield contains, in the first chapter, certain less-than-positive references to Detroit when teaching logical notation. "If the meeting is in Detroit, then George will be late," and "George will bring a casserole if and only if the meeting is not in Detroit." |
| 222 | * ''Modern Logic'' by Grame Forbes: "Since '∃' is 'E' written backward, it may be pronounced by pronouncing 'E' backward." (Presumably one also pronounces '∀'[[labelnote:*]]"Turned A"[[/labelnote]] by pronouncing 'A' upside-down.) |
| 223 | * Free internet textbook ''Discrete Mathematics: An Open Introduction'' contains a [[http://discrete.openmathbooks.org/dmoi2/sec_propositional.html logic problem]] with a solution that goes "It's your bithday, but TheCakeIsALie." It also has a problem about ''zombie mathematicians'' and another with magic chocolate bunnies that multiply following the Fibonacci sequence. |
| 224 | * And the logic textbook written by J. I. M. Bocheński [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in 1942]] explains FourTermsFallacy using the following example: |
| 225 | --> Every ''prusak''[[note]]a type of cockroach[[/note]] is an insect.\ |
| 226 | Every person who lives in Berlin is a ''Prusak''[[note]]Prussian[[/note]]\ |
| 227 | Ergo: every person who lives in Berlin is an insect. |
| 228 | [[/folder]] |
| 229 | |
| 230 | [[folder:Mathematics]] |
| 231 | * Michael Spivak's college ''Calculus'' textbooks have random references to a "yellow pig" in the index, and the works are dedicated to a mysterious "Y.P." |
| 232 | * Hungerford's textbook Algebra calls the fact that (x + y)^2 = x^2 + y^2 in a commutative ring of characteristic 2 the "Freshman's Dream Lemma". |
| 233 | * Edward Scheinerman, a writer of college math textbooks, has a tendency to go for the subtly PunBasedTitle. His books include ''Mathematics: A Discrete Introduction'' and ''Fractional Graph Theory: A Rational Approach''. His discrete math textbook also has exercises in it like "Prove that if you pull a guinea pig by its tail, its eyes will fall out."[[note]]If you look in the "hints" section at the back of the book, there's a picture of a guinea pig, showing that it doesn't have a tail.[[/note]] |
| 234 | * ''Fundamentals of Complex Analysis'' by Saff and Snider has an index entry for "puns". |
| 235 | * The Preface for the Student of Edmund Landau's ''Foundations of Analysis'' begins with "Please don't read the preface for the Teacher." |
| 236 | * The ''Practice of Statistics'' by Dan Yates, David S. Moore and Daren S. Starnes has a problem on determining human life span off a regression curve of mass vs. other animals' life spans. The answer is 17 (humans are an exception). This being an odd numbered problem, the answer is listed in the back, where it says: "17. Oh well." |
| 237 | * Probability and Statistics textbooks by J. Jakubowski and R. Sztencel have [[FootnoteFever little comments on the margins]], including additional information, useful hints for solving presented problems, as well as semi-related movie quotes, jokes, puns and comments along the lines of "It is a good idea to try using your brain now". |
| 238 | * One problem in Mario F. Triola's ''Elementary Statistics, Tenth Edition'' went as follows: |
| 239 | -->"On their first date, Kelly asks Mike to guess the date of her birth, not including the year. What is the probability that Mike will guess correctly? Would it be unusual for him to guess correctly on his first try? If Kelly subsequently asks Mike to guess her age, and Mike's guess is too high by 15 years, what is the probability that Mike and Kelly will have a second date?" |
| 240 | * The Functions, Statistics and Trigonometry book by the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project contains a problem involving a chemist named Dr. Al Kali. |
| 241 | * ''Fourier Analysis'' by Thomas William Kömer quotes the "cider in your ear" speech from ''Theatre/GuysAndDolls'' in a chapter about data analysis. |
| 242 | * ''Concrete Mathematics'' by Ronald Graham, Donald Knuth, and Oren Patashnik has marginal notes written by the students in the classes that field-tested drafts of the book. Some are helpful, but most are some flavor of smartassery. |
| 243 | * ''Principia Mathematica'' by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead takes several hundred pages to lead up to a proof that 1+1=2[[note]]contrary to popular belief, the proof itself is rather short; the hundreds of pages before it defines precisely what is meant by "1", "2", "+" and "="[[/note]]; when it finally gets there, it remarks that "[[{{Understatement}} the above proposition is occasionally useful]]". |
| 244 | * Key Curriculum's ''Discovering Geometry'' is made of this trope, with almost all the word problems featuring characters with {{punny name}}s. |
| 245 | * Addison-Wesley's ''Beginning Algebra'' contains a word problem about ticket sales for a band called [[Music/TheyMightBeGiants Prosthetic Forehead]]. |
| 246 | * There is a series of text books titled "Life of Fred" that follows the adventures of a mathematics professor. Who is four (five in some of the books). That's about the most sane thing that happens, story-wise. |
| 247 | * A Finnish high school math book features an exercise in which you need to calculate tangents for flowers on a circle and whatnot. The finals part of the exercise asks what the bee in the meadow thinks of all this. The answer? [[spoiler:*yawn*!]] |
| 248 | * The textbook ''Stats:Data and Models'' has many humorous, even snarky, footnotes to accompany the text. For one particularly memorable example, the chapter about randomness stated off explaining how important randomness is in statistics, and that without randomness, the textbook would end right there. The footnote: Don't get your hopes up. |
| 249 | * A certain GCSE mathematics course book uses the renting of a VW Microbus as a scenario around which several problems are based (such as how much fuel would be needed if the bus could achieve a certain MPG with a certain number of average-sized people aboard, how much it would cost to fuel the bus per person over various ranges, etc). The illustration that accompanies this problem set is a group of bemused-looking people standing around a literal microbus, the size of a toy. |
| 250 | * A high school level Algebra book had a problem involving two children cornering 64 Komodo Dragons in the side yard of their home. |
| 251 | * ''Real Mathematical Analysis'' by Charles Chapman Pugh includes, after a certain proof, the amusingly opinionated line "The fact that a non-trivial space is homeomorphic to its own Cartesian square is disturbing, is it not?" (He's right, though: it ''is'' disturbing. Imagine trying to stretch a line segment into a square and you'll have some idea.) |
| 252 | * A German university textbook about stochastic processes uses "real life" examples along the lines "In a battle in the US Civil War, Confederate soldiers arrive according to a poisson process at a rate of ''m'' on the battlefield and will hit Union soldiers at a rate of ''n'' if present, while Union soldiers arrive at a rate of ''o'' and have a shooting accuracy of ''p''. What are the odds of the Union winning the battle (having more soldiers on the battlefield) at dusk?" [[spoiler:Lest we forget, the length of the river in the middle of the battlefield is distributed randomly according to a distribution ''G'', but as the textbook states, that will not have any impact on the outcome]]. During the course, they are getting more and more absurd. |
| 253 | * A Swedish high school textbook on mathematics includes a problem where the student is to figure out for how long Captain Picard from ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' can be inside a core reactor before the radiation is going to kill him. |
| 254 | * There is a British A-level Mathematics-Mechanics textbook that is made up ''almost entirely'' of this. For example, one problem involves a Christian and a lion in the Colosseum being tied on ropes of 'x' length in particular positions and the problem is to work out whether there is any possible safe position; the question ends with a DontTryThisAtHome disclaimer. |
| 255 | * At least one math textbook asks the volume of a cylinder with a height of q and a radius of sqrt(t).[[note]]qtπ[[/note]] |
| 256 | * OlderThanRadio: D H Hill, later famous as a Confederate General, published in 1849 an algebra textbook containing such anti-Northern gems as |
| 257 | -->The field of battle at Buena Vista is 6½ miles from Saltillo. Two Indiana volunteers ran away from the field of battle at the same time; one ran half a mile per hour faster than the other, and reached Saltillo 5 minutes and 54 6/11 seconds sooner than the other. Required their respective rates of travel. |
| 258 | ::and |
| 259 | -->A man in Cincinnati purchased 10,000 pounds of bad pork, at 1 cent per pound, and paid so much per pound to put it through a chemical process, by which it would appear sound, and then sold it at an advanced price, clearing $450 by the fraud. The price at which he sold the pork per pound, multiplied by the cost per pound of the chemical process, was 3 cents. Required the price at which he sold it, and the cost of the chemical process. |
| 260 | * Scientists will occasionally insert some snark into their research papers, as seen in the paper which introduced [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_Number Graham's Number]], "the largest number ever used in a serious mathematical proof" (at the time), a number so unbelievably gigantic they had to invent a new form of notation just to write it down. Graham's Number is the original upper bound on the number of solutions to the problem. The lower bound? '''Six'''. The paper commented: "Clearly, there is some room for improvement here." |
| 261 | ** And some improvements have since been made: The upper bound is now 2↑↑↑6, a number that can be described using "only" 4 power towers, and the lower bound is 13. |
| 262 | * There was at least one GCSE maths book in the '90s that featured a cameo by [[Series/OnlyFoolsAndHorses Del Boy and Rodney]]. |
| 263 | * ''Linear Algebra and its Applications'' by David C. Lay, when introducing the shear transformation gives a picture of a sheep and a sheared sheep. |
| 264 | * ''Geometry For Enjoyment and Challenge,'' not including the ridiculous title, also contains a problem concerning a boy named Arnex with angles in his pocket. |
| 265 | ** The textbook also includes math-related pictures of dogs drawn on the pages. |
| 266 | * Sheldon Axler tends to sneak in jokes into his math textbooks: |
| 267 | ** Page 314 in ''[[https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/5dbhi3/page_314_is_100%CF%80_in_my_math_textbook/ Precalculus: A Prelude to Calculus]]'' and ''Linear Algebra Done Right'' instead have instead "≈ 100π" as the page number. Other alternative page numbers include "2", "≈ 7π", "≈ 100 ''e''", and "100√2". |
| 268 | ** The last homework problem in the Spectral Theorem section in ''Linear Algebra Done Right'' is [[http://spikedmath.com/097.html this comic]], presented as a "solve for ''x''" problem. The only reason for this problem's inclusion in the textbook is apparently to exploit the pun of a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_operator normal]] linear operator. The problem itself can be considered humorous for how elementary it is compared to the rest of the material (which is primarily proof-based). |
| 269 | * One high school geometry textbook teaches about parallelograms and circles with the story of "[[PunnyName Rex Tangle]]," a parallelogram with a face who just wants to fit in... specifically, he wants to fit into a circle. The solution? Become a rectangle! |
| 270 | * More than one math book lists "Fibonacci" in its index at pages 1,2,3,5,8,13... or the same joke with prime numbers on pages 2,3,5,7,11,13,17... |
| 271 | [[/folder]] |
| 272 | |
| 273 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 274 | * The reference book for the music typesetting software ''Sibelius'' has some interesting quotes that have been preserved through several editions. For example, describing a 19th century convention in which two-note tremolos only had note lengths doubled if they lasted for a quarter note or more, it remarks, "This was bananas." This is even preserved (in English) in the Italian edition of the book! In the very next paragraph, it described another idiosyncrasy in which a two-note tremolo lasting for two 4/4 bars will be written as two whole notes instead of two breves, as one might expect. Says the author: "Most people go a lifetime without noticing this weird exception - what sheltered lives they lead." |
| 275 | * ''Music in Western Civilization'' is a comprehensive textbook covering exactly that. It also references ''Star Wars'', and speculates that certain fourteenth century composers were intent on driving their elders crazy with experimental rhythms. |
| 276 | -->"The English text tells of the exuberant sights and sounds of a rural spring: the singing cuckoo, the bleating lamb, the lowing cow, and the farting goat, among them." |
| 277 | [[/folder]] |
| 278 | |
| 279 | [[folder:Physics]] |
| 280 | * The high school ''Fundamentals of Physics'' series by Karen Cummings, David Halliday and Robert Resnick features problems about a "Slide-Loving Pig" as a running gag. For instance "A slide-loving pig slides down a certain 35-degree slide in twice the time it would take to slide down a frictionless 35-degree slide. What is the coefficient of kinetic friction between the pig and the slide?" Other "Slide Loving" animals (including penguins) appear throughout various editions of the work. |
| 281 | * The ''College Physics'' series by Raymond A. Serway, Chris Vuille, and Jerry S. Faughn features a number of hilarious homework problems, for instance: "In a showdown on the streets of Laredo, the good guy drops a 5.0-gram silver bullet, at a temperature of 20°C, into a 100-cm³ cup of water at 90°C. Simultaneously, the bad guy drops a 5.0-gram copper bullet, at the same initial temperatures, into an identical cup of water. Which one ends the showdown with the coolest cup of water in the West? Neglect any energy transfer into or away from the container." |
| 282 | * ''Optics'' by Hecht has, in the section on electromagnetic radiation, an infrared photo of the author, explaining that the different colors indicated different temperature. The caption reads, "Note the cool beard." There's also some a remark in the (4th) edition about finding the first edition and checking the retreat of his hair line. |
| 283 | * Whoever writes the New Zealand high school science material seems to be indulging in this. The physics problems are especially hilarious. |
| 284 | ** Of note is a picture of two kids with a bong and the following problem. "Daphne and Billy are on the beach finding peace, when Timmy uncovers a cache of fireworks. The fireworks have the following yield. Daphne has a mass of x and Billy has a mass of y. If Timmy detonates the fireworks at location Z, how far do Daphne's and Billy's bloodstained cadavers fly?" |
| 285 | ** And of course, two pages of some boys trying to catapult a bag across a river. The final question is thus: "Calamity! A duck with a mass of x, flying at speed y, collides with the bag! How far and in which direction do the splattered remains of the duck fly?" |
| 286 | * ''Special Relativity'' by T.M. Helliwell has a number of problems (and some cover art) featuring rhinoceroses running at relativistic speeds. |
| 287 | * ''[[http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Physics-Aristotle-Einstein-Beyond/dp/0449906973 Instant Physics: From Aristotle to Einstein and Beyond]]'' is ''made'' of this trope. |
| 288 | * ''Physics: Principles and Problems'', which was written by a professor at the University of Michigan, contains the following problem in Chapter 9- "A 0.115-kg hockey puck, moving at 35.0 m/s, strikes a 0.265 octopus thrown onto the ice by a hockey fan. The puck and the octopus slide off together. Find their velocity."[[note]]Throwing an octopus onto the ice after a win is a tradition at Detroit Red Wings (a nearby professional hockey team) games[[/note]] |
| 289 | * ''Physics II: New Method For Learning'' by various authors, is chockful of hypothetical situations quite... improbable. |
| 290 | ** A particularly memorable example: "A ninja jumps off from a window and lands over the roof of a car passing at 50 mph. If his enemy throws a rock at him, How much force (in Newtons) and speed would the rock need to hit the ninja?". |
| 291 | ** "Mark throws a watermelon, a paper ball, a fridge and himself from a 50 ft tall cliff. Using the equivalence gravity = -9.8 meters per second[[superscript:2]], calculate which of them will hit the floor first." There even was an ''illustration'' to show the mass of each object. |
| 292 | ** "If you throw a baseball in an ascending, vertical line with a velocity of X, What is the maximum height it will reach, and how much time will it take for it to hit you back in the head?" |
| 293 | * New Century Senior Physics outlines, in its explanation of sound waves and infrasound, how cinemas place banks of subwoofers resonating at low frequencies causing the internal organs to vibrate, making explosions more realistic. It notes "While [infrasound] may be safe under controlled conditions, it can cause nausea and dizziness. Death can occur in extreme cases when internal organs rub against each other and hemorrhage. Enjoy your movie.' |
| 294 | * A certain advanced calculus-intensive textbook on electromagnetism which is otherwise rather dry and humorless does have one deliciously witty moment in its discussion of circuits with inductors: it explains that if the circuit is broken while strong current is still flowing through the inductor, "the resulting catastrophe may be more than mathematical"![[note]]An inductor essentially acts like an electrical flywheel; it resists sudden changes in current. Breaking the circuit at such a time would cause mathematical discontinuities, and a large reverse voltage spike. Forgetting the reverse protection diode is an easy way to fry the controlling transistor.[[/note]] |
| 295 | * David L. Goodstein's ''States of Matter'' [[http://books.google.com/books?id=6YSqXOO4MCQC&pg=PA1 begins thus]]: |
| 296 | -->Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics. Perhaps it will be wise to approach the subject cautiously. |
| 297 | * ''Alabama Grade 8 Science Explorer'' includes a Lab Activity involving an [[ParodicTableOfTheElements alien Periodic Table]]. There are 29 elements in total, and the names range from puns to just plain nonsense. Some of the more humorous ones include: Wobble, Byyou, Chow, Quackzil, Highho, Sississ, Pfsst, Eldorado, Doggone, Goldy, Urrp, Oz, and Pie. |
| 298 | * A Swedish textbook explains vector properties through an example including a fisherman, his fishing rod, and a fish. The book explains that "a fish with a flair for mathematics would have a good reason to suspect that the force generated [on the fishing rod] would display vector properties". Yes, the mathematical knowledge is attributed to the fish. |
| 299 | * The CGP revision guide for GCSE Physics ends with a guide on making a cup of tea. Well, it is {{Brit|sLoveTea}}ish... |
| 300 | * John R. Taylor's ''[[http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X Classical Mechanics]]'' delivers ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. It's a classical mechanic...on a book about classical mechanics. Taylor seems to be fond of this trope, as indicated by the cover of his [[http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Error-Analysis-Uncertainties-Measurements/dp/093570275X/ref=la_B001IODK2C_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403582018&sr=1-2 textbook on error analysis.]] |
| 301 | * A more subtle example: any undergraduate who has taken a statistical mechanics course has probably encountered Kittel and Kroemer's [[http://www.amazon.com/Thermal-Physics-Edition-Charles-Kittel/dp/0716710889 Thermal Physics]]. The prose is otherwise dry but one of the end of chapter exercises has a BreakingTheFourthWall moment when the reader is instructed to do the problem "carefully and honestly." Many a physics student has probably had a WTF moment there. |
| 302 | * Leon van Dommelen's ''[[https://www.eng.famu.fsu.edu/~dommelen/quantum/style_a/index.html Quantum Mechanics for Engineers]]'' goes into full DeadpanSnarker mode whenever a NonIndicativeName is mentioned, sometimes for an entire paragraph. It also has other jokes, such as its [[https://www.eng.famu.fsu.edu/~dommelen/quantum/style_a/pth.html "explanation"]] of the confusing relativistic "Darwin term" for the electron; the electron doesn't see precisely the nuclear potential because it's quivering with fear, or maybe needs glasses. |
| 303 | * ''Sears and Zemansky's University Physics'' by Young and Freedman (12th edition) features "your cousin Throckmorton" (or Throcky) who skateboards on frictionless ramps and plays with clotheslines for fun. |
| 304 | * One Israeli physics textbook gives a table of comparative speeds for different creatures and objects. Somewhere near the bottom, it has the speed for the Jews as they wandered in the desert for 40 years (pointing out it's an average speed, since they were clearly stated to make camp from time to time). |
| 305 | * The ninth edition of ''Halliday & Resnick's Fundamentals of Physics'' includes a problem that begins with: "You are kidnapped by political-science majors (who are upset because you told them [[HardOnSoftScience political science is not a real science]])." |
| 306 | [[/folder]] |
| 307 | |
| 308 | [[folder:Psychology]] |
| 309 | * A high school psychology textbook includes slightly related pictures on nearly every page with funny captions. For example: (A black-and-white picture of a man with Icarus-style feathered wings on.) "This man avoided the problem of jet-lag by never getting off the ground." |
| 310 | * ''Psychology'' by David G. Myers ends a long list of psychology sub-disciplines with "Psychoceramics (the study of crackpots)." |
| 311 | ** Another one shows a stock picture of a wolf-man and a woman hugging. "A date between [[Film/TeenWolf a teen guy]] and a girl, as seen by the girl's father." |
| 312 | * At least one college psychology textbook lists the four 'F's of psychology as fighting, fleeing, foraging, and [[LastSecondWordSwap f...ornication]]. |
| 313 | * ''Myers Modules'', the standard first-year psychology book, is actually very fun to read, with snarky stories about Myers' family and LampshadeHanging on various aspects of psychology (such as SubliminalAdvertising). |
| 314 | * Page 205 ''Introduction to Psychology'' by James W. Kalat uses hilariously off-model ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' ersatzes to illustrate the effects of classical conditioning. |
| 315 | [[/folder]] |
| 316 | |
| 317 | [[folder:Sociology]] |
| 318 | * A sociology textbook, discussing social mores, put in a picture of the late "Human Blockhead" Melvin Burkhart, with the caption, "One unstated rule of most societies is that you do not put things up your nose. Melvin Burkhart, pictured here, makes a living out of breaking that particular rule." |
| 319 | [[/folder]] |
| 320 | |
| 321 | [[folder:Multiple Studies]] |
| 322 | * The CGP revision guides in the United Kingdom always offer quirky cartoons in the notes and one-liner jokes in the summaries, which are often pop culture references. |
| 323 | ** One particularly memorable example being an A-Level maths book containing a page titled "Cows". It's about cows. It has a brief list of the differences between some breeds of cow, and some cow-related puns on song titles ("[[Music/BritneySpears Milk me baby one more time]]"(?!)). Then it [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment just goes back to maths.]] |
| 324 | ** Another in the series randomly replaces the revision section at the bottom of the page with advice on how to make Penguin (sorry, ''[[BlandNameProduct Pelican]]'') biscuits better by drinking tea through them. This introduced a generation of British A-level students to the Australian [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Tam_Slam#Tim_Tam_Slam Tim Tam Slam]] manoeuvre. |
| 325 | * The Academic Decathlon "resource books" are absolutely full of nerdy jokes and pop-culture references. |
| 326 | * The Princeton Review set of standardized test books has a light tone of explaining subjects compared to other textbooks while getting the points across. |
| 327 | * Russian writer Grigoriy Oster produced two books in the late nineties - "Math Problems (an [[StealthPun illustrious]] textbook)" and "Physics Problems". Both featured his trademark dark humour and, while being very workable and well-designed textbooks for 7th-8th-9th grades of the Russian school system, ran with exceptionally whimsical problems, ranging from "An unholy force is trying to lift [[Myth/RussianMythologyAndTales Kaschei the Immortal]] out of his coffin. It is exerting so-and-so Newtons. Kaschei weighs so-and-so kilograms. Should we panic now?" (the hint for the problem went "Nah, you can relax, it's too weak to wake him.") through "[[Literature/TreasureIsland Captain Flint's]] parrot knows X cuss words. Y of them are in English, Z are in Spanish and O are in French. The rest are in Russian. How many of these are there?" all the way to "Bryaka had 12 [[CallARabbitASmeerp poosiks]]. Half of them she [[PerfectlyCromulentWord ryamked]], while the rest were [[FridgeHorror fooched]] onto a [[NoodleImplements dybyra]]. 4 poosiks have [[MagicAIsMagicA unfooched]] from the dybyra and [[InsistentTerminology ryamked]]..." and so on. Granted, they were originally intended to be works of humour first and textbooks second, but they are probably the most {{Troperrific}} textbooks ever known to mankind. |
| 328 | * The ''For Dummies'' series of study guides contain numerous topical cartoons at the start of sections or chapters. That, and a lot of humor throughout all the text... |
| 329 | * The ''Head First'' series apply this extremely liberally. [[http://www.headfirstlabs.com/readme.php As they note,]] people remember fun parts much better than boring parts. |
| 330 | * A choice of humorous (in varying degrees) illustrations from textbooks will be [[https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-odd-science-diagrams/ found here.]] Wealth of knowledge! That you'll never have any use for. |
| 331 | [[/folder]] |
| 332 | |
| 333 | [[folder:The Other Wiki]] |
| 334 | * [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Outline_of_running&oldid=498597083 An old outline of running]]: |
| 335 | -->"Running – means of rapidly traveling on foot, in which at regular points during the running cycle both feet are off the ground. Running is a key component to a number of sporting events typically in the realm of road racing, track and field or triathlon & getting away from zombies and/or murderers." |
| 336 | * [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plonk_(wine)&oldid=1108422679 The article on plonk]] as of 27 May 2023 captions its page image "Wine in drinkware befitting plonk." The page image? Two large clear plastic cups with lids and straws filled with iced [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Zinfandel White Zinfandel.]] |
| 337 | * [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_paradox The Raven Paradox]] is about the fact that non-black, non-ravens contribute information about the likelihood of all ravens being black. The page is helpfully captioned with a picture of a black raven, and a bunch of apples, labelled non-black, non-ravens. |
| 338 | * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysius_Gonzaga From this piece on a famous Italian saint]]: "At the age of five, Aloysius was sent to a military camp to get started on his career. His father was pleased to see his son marching around camp at the head of a platoon of soldiers. His mother and his tutor were less pleased with the [[ClusterFBomb vocabulary]] he picked up there." |
| 339 | * On [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cetaceans the list of cetaceans,]] missing pictures are labeled with "cetacean needed", a spoof of the more commonly seen tag "citation needed". Perhaps they picked it up from ''Blog/WhatIf'', which has made many puns of that nature (including that very one). |
| 340 | * "Glossary of climbing terms" [[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Glossary_of_climbing_terms&oldid=910883158 long demonstrated]] the intersection of ExpospeakGag and GallowsHumor: |
| 341 | -->'''''Fall''''' |
| 342 | --->''To unintentionally descend using gravity as an aid. Hopefully stopped by a rope.'' |
| 343 | * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_logic Explaining modal logic]]: |
| 344 | --> Of course, this analogy does not apply alethic modality in a ''truly'' rigorous fashion; for it to do so, it would have to axiomatically make such statements as "human beings cannot rise from the dead", "Socrates was a human being and not an immortal vampire", and "we did not take hallucinogenic drugs which caused us to falsely believe the lights were on", ''ad infinitum''. |
| 345 | * The Bracket article, for a long time, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bracket&oldid=815436069#Parentheses contained]] the following (which has since been copy-edited): |
| 346 | -->Parentheses may be nested (generally with one set (such as this) inside another set). This is not commonly used in formal writing (though sometimes other brackets [especially square brackets] will be used for one or more inner set of parentheses [in other words, secondary {or even tertiary} phrases can be found within the main parenthetical sentence]). |
| 347 | * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_really,_really,_really_stupid_article_ideas_that_you_really,_really,_really_should_not_create This page]][[note]]Technically not an article[[/note]] in its entirety, but especially: |
| 348 | -->3. Your imaginary friend [[note]]Linking to "[[NerdsAreVirgins sexual partner]]"[[/note]] or your imaginary friends [[note]]Linking to "polygamy"[[/note]] that don't even exist. |
| 349 | * The very useful ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medical_symptoms List of medical symptoms]]'' has links to the symptoms which you can hover over to see the first lines of the article. Try doing this to the item "I can't... Remember normally". [[spoiler:You'll get [[EasyAmnesia "I cant remember, sorry"]].]] |
| 350 | * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(numbers)#Smaller_than_10%E2%88%92100_(one_googolth) The second image in "Orders of magnitude (numbers)"]]: |
| 351 | --> '''Caption:''' Chimpanzee [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem probably not]] typing ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''.[[note]]The image shows a chimpanzee seated in front of a typewriter.[[/note]] |
| 352 | * The article On [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers IP over Avian Carriers]] (which was an AprilFoolsDay joke, anyway) used to have a picture of a dead pigeon captioned, "An example of packet loss." |
| 353 | |
| 354 | |
| 355 | [[/folder]] |
| 356 | |
| 357 | [[folder:Other]] |
| 358 | * Various [[UrbanLegends poorly cited]] quotes on the internet attribute this nature to American military training materials, usually pertaining to the safe [[ShurFineGuns maintenance]] and [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace operation]] of weapons and [[GrenadeHotPotato explosives]]. The actual training materials are rarely (but certainly not never) that interesting. |
| 359 | -->"A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit." |
| 360 | * A [[http://pic.twitter.com/jZ4GHanAgO recognition problem from a Japanese textbook]] has the following multiple-choice answers (B being the correct one): |
| 361 | -->a. Haniwa\ |
| 362 | b. Dogu\ |
| 363 | c. [[Manga/{{Doraemon}} Gigazombie]] |
| 364 | * According to the AQA AS-Level Philosophy textbook, [[http://i.imgur.com/InsfmFC.jpg this is a perfect island.]] |
| 365 | * Language learning app VideoGame/{{Duolingo}} has plenty of odd sentences for you to translate. Ever wanted to ask a Norwegian why there's a Swedish telemarketer in your bed? Duolingo will teach you how! |
| 366 | * Creator/BertrandRussell, he of the ''Principia Mathematica'' above, had written several other books, including ''A History of Western Philosophy'', which contains cute zingers like: |
| 367 | --> (after describing the cult of Bacchus and what maenads did) Before repeating that the Greeks were "serene," try to imagine the matrons of Philadelphia behaving in this manner, even in a play by Eugene O’Neill. \ |
| 368 | (one of the Roman emperors) was murdered by the army, as was at that time the custom.\ |
| 369 | (when Descartes was ostracised by the University of Leyden) the Prince of Orange intervened, and told the university not to be silly.\ |
| 370 | (explaining Locke's utilitiarian ethics) We all know people who put off going to the dentist longer than they would if they were engaged in the rational pursuit of pleasure.\ |
| 371 | (on Kant) The Encyclopedia Britannica remarks that "as he never married, he kept the habits of his studious youth to old age." I wonder whether the author of this article was a bachelor or a married man. [[note]]Russell himself was not only married, but had two mistresses.[[/note]]\ |
| 372 | [[Creator/FriedrichNietzsche Nietzsche's]] superman is very like Siegfried, except that he knows Greek. ''This may seem odd, but that is not my fault.''\ |
| 373 | (illustrating a point by an analogy to being struck by lightning) you experience no surprise, because you are dead. |
| 374 | * The definition document for [[https://github.com/google/open-location-code/blob/master/docs/olc_definition.adoc Open Location Code,]] a way to generate addresses where roads do not exist or are not named, discusses some limitations that its method has. |
| 375 | -->Open Location Codes cannot exactly represent coordinates at latitude 90. [...] We are willing to accept this shortcoming since there is no permanent settlement at the North Pole. |
| 376 | * In the section of [[https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/UnicodeStandard-13.0.pdf the Unicode Standard]] discussing the Irish [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogham ogham]] script:[[note]]warning, page 382 of 1,030-page PDF[[/note]] |
| 377 | -->The word ''latheirt'' ᚛ᚂᚐᚈᚆᚓᚔᚏᚈ᚜[[note]]may or may not show up, depending on the fonts installed on your computer[[/note]] shows the use of the feather marks. This word was written in the margin of a ninth-century Latin grammar and means “massive hangover,” which may be the scribe’s apology for any errors in his text. |
| 378 | * ''Literature/XanthippicDialogues'' is interspersed with suble zingers (including one to Russell's love life -- apparently he got nothing on [[ReallyGetsAround Hegel]]), but the cherry on top has to be the index, filled to the brim with shout-outs, non-sequiturs and author's opinions ("UsefulNotes/TheCommonLaw, God's gift for the English"). [[spoiler:That's because the book only pretends to be a lost text, now found and critically published.]] |
| 379 | * Most official rulings listed on [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Default.aspx Gatherer]] for TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering cards are relatively dry explanations of card and rule interactions. Occasionally, however, the explanations do get a bit sassy. Examples (with rules context) include: |
| 380 | ** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=450647 Thantis, the Warweaver]]: "You can’t attack yourself or your own planeswalkers to give Thantis +1/+1 counters, but Thantis appreciates the way you think." [[note]]When it gets to the combat phase of your turn, you can only attack with creatures you control, and creatures can't attack their own controllers. Even if you'd be comfortable potentially taking a hit from your own Thantis to give it counters, the rules just won't let you.[[/note]] |
| 381 | ** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=473127 Heart's Desire/Lovestruck Beast]]: "If Lovestruck Beast’s power and toughness are reduced to 1/1, it learns that loving oneself is the first step on the true path to happiness, and it can attack even if you control no other 1/1 creatures." [[note]]This card, referencing ''Literature/BeautyAndTheBeast'', can first create a separate 1/1 creature (the Beauty) before it is cast as a 5/5 (the Beast). The Beast itself cannot attack unless you also control a 1/1. This will often be the 1/1 it made before, but because it only looks for a 1/1 anywhere, not on any ''other'' creature, if the Beast is depowered to be a 1/1, it fulfills the condition by itself.[[/note]] |
| 382 | ** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=402093 Void Winnower]]: "Yes, your opponent can’t even. We know." [[note]]Winnower's abilities shut down specific possibilities of cards based on whether they are quantified with even numbers. This one isn't even a silly comment on a valid ruling; it's just there to let players know that yes, they know about the phrase "I can't even right now" and yes, they've heard the joke.[[/note]] |
| 383 | ** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=398433 Demonic Pact]]: "Yes, if the fourth mode is the only one remaining, you must choose it. [[ReadTheFinePrint You read the whole contract, right?]]"[[note]]Each turn, Demonic Pact forces you to choose from one of four options, but you can't choose an option that's already been chosen. Three of the four options are beneficial, and the fourth is "You lose the game". The card's whole DealWithTheDevil design revolves around that fourth option hanging over your head like a sword of Damocles, and letting players get around it by refraining from making the choice at all would obviously break that.[[/note]] |
| 384 | ** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=142363 Goatnapper]] has the ruling of "Yes, target Goat. Goat is a creature type.[[note]]Keep in mind that each permanent with changeling is a Goat, as is any permanent affected by a spell or ability that gives it every creature type.[[/note]]" |
| 385 | * In the second VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft ''Chronicle'' compendium, the index contains an entry that reads "dreadlord - see [[MemeticMutation Jaina Proudmoore]]" [[note]]This is a deliberate joke, as neither Jaina nor any specific dreadlords ever actually appear within the text. It should also be noted that the "proper" Jaina entry in the index cites [[CommonHTTPStatusCode page 404]], in a book that only has 202 pages.[[/note]] |
| 386 | * Considering research papers, [[https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html here]] you can find a lot of April Fool papers on the giant preprint server Arxiv. This features, for example, [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombies as explanation for the Fermi paradox]], [[GodwinsLaw a quantum internet speedup for Godwin's Law]], [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire why winter is coming (meteorology and celestial mechanics)]] and, and, and... |
| 387 | [[/folder]] |
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