Hunting Elephants
I don't know why I feel so uncharacteristically flippant these days. I think it's because I have given up on what people think is serious and portentous and have decided to concentrate on education instead. The joke series that follows was first introduced to me by my brother, a talented historian and expert on terrorism and arms trading. He loves elephants, and it has caused him no end of grief. Heh. I have added my own sub-jokes too.
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HUNTING ELEPHANTS – A Multidisciplinary Approach
This is a simple aide-memoire to help you remember how various specialists would handle the hunt for an African elephant. Enjoy!
Group 1 & 2 Hunters
LINGUISTS hunt elephants by going to Africa and asking for things which have grey, wrinkly, large properties. They then flap their ears a lot, make trumpeting sounds, and catch whatever comes along in response.
LITERATI are more artistic in this respect. Some attempt to set the mood with Indian decor for the sake of parallelism. The poetic type look for stressed feet which alternate a-b-a-b. The rest accept anything African as a prize-winning elephant.
CLASSICISTS locate tapirs, describe all possible manifestations of them, and proclaim that the true elephant does not have the modern trunk, tusks or stature.
Group 3 Hunters
ANTHROPOLOGISTS hunt elephant hunters.
SOCIOLOGISTS don't hunt elephants. They hang out at bars and trade elephant-hunting stories.
ECONOMISTS don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves.
GEOGRAPHERS look for elephant footprints, elephant watering holes, and elephant graveyards. Having located all these and drawn appropriate maps, they model an elephant.
HISTORIANS ask everyone where the elephants were seen and what they did, then write elephantine books.
MANAGEMENT STUDENTS study elephant hunters and write case studies about the successful and unsuccessful ones, not bothering to hunt elephants themselves.
POLITICIANS don't hunt elephants either, but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them.
LAWYERS don't hunt elephants at all, but they do follow the herds around arguing about who owns the droppings.
BUSINESS CONSULTANTS don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do.
OPERATIONS RESEARCH CONSULTANTS can also measure the correlation of what size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will only identify the elephants.
PSYCHOLOGISTS hunt imaginary elephants.
PSYCHIATRISTS are hunted by imaginary elephants, and prescribe drugs to escape them.
Group 4 Hunters
ASTRONOMERS have never seen an elephant but meet several times a year to debate their existence anyway.
BIOLOGISTS do surveys of the landscape and find two-footed elephants with wings, skinny elephants with stripes, low-slung elephants with one horn, high-strung elephants with two horns...
PRE-MEDS don't hunt elephants, but would learn to do so if it would help them on their MCATs.
CHEMISTS estimate their population in terms of 6 x 10E23 and call them moles.
ENGINEERS hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed elephant.
PARTICLE PHYSICISTS spend their lives smashing rhinoceri into each other and hoping to observe resultant elephant tracks.
PROFESSORS OF PHYSICS hunt large grey animals which they hypothesise might be elephants. They then sit around and wait for a few years for someone to challenge them. If no one does, they publish the results.
NOBEL PRIZE WINNING PROFESSORS OF PHYSICS hunt large grey animals, publish their results, and everyone agrees that they are elephants.
Group 5 Hunters
MATHEMATICIANS hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left.
EXPERIENCED MATHEMATICIANS will attempt to prove the existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate exercise.
PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students.
TOPOLOGISTS catch elephants by drawing a circle, confirming that there are no elephants inside the circle, and inverting the circle – the circle will now contain all the elephants.
STATISTICIANS hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant.
COMPUTER SCIENTISTS hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A:
1. Go to Africa.
2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west.
4. During each traverse pass,
a. Catch each animal seen.
b. Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
c. Stop when a match is detected.
EXPERIENCED COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.
ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMERS prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands and knees.
Group 6 Hunters (and others)
ARTISTS hunt elephants with a telephoto lens; when they're done, you will wonder where the elephant is.
DANCERS hunt elephants by instinct, but it doesn't matter if they never see one – it's all in the feet.
MUSICIANS hunt elephants by sound; actually, they believe that all animals have an elephant hidden inside awaiting the right conductor.
FRESHMEN hunt elephants. But first they stalk out the libraries and read every available piece of literature on elephants.
UPPERCLASSMEN hunt elephants, but remember to do so only on the last day of the season.
=====
HUNTING ELEPHANTS – A Multidisciplinary Approach
This is a simple aide-memoire to help you remember how various specialists would handle the hunt for an African elephant. Enjoy!
Group 1 & 2 Hunters
LINGUISTS hunt elephants by going to Africa and asking for things which have grey, wrinkly, large properties. They then flap their ears a lot, make trumpeting sounds, and catch whatever comes along in response.
LITERATI are more artistic in this respect. Some attempt to set the mood with Indian decor for the sake of parallelism. The poetic type look for stressed feet which alternate a-b-a-b. The rest accept anything African as a prize-winning elephant.
CLASSICISTS locate tapirs, describe all possible manifestations of them, and proclaim that the true elephant does not have the modern trunk, tusks or stature.
Group 3 Hunters
ANTHROPOLOGISTS hunt elephant hunters.
SOCIOLOGISTS don't hunt elephants. They hang out at bars and trade elephant-hunting stories.
ECONOMISTS don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves.
GEOGRAPHERS look for elephant footprints, elephant watering holes, and elephant graveyards. Having located all these and drawn appropriate maps, they model an elephant.
HISTORIANS ask everyone where the elephants were seen and what they did, then write elephantine books.
MANAGEMENT STUDENTS study elephant hunters and write case studies about the successful and unsuccessful ones, not bothering to hunt elephants themselves.
POLITICIANS don't hunt elephants either, but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them.
LAWYERS don't hunt elephants at all, but they do follow the herds around arguing about who owns the droppings.
BUSINESS CONSULTANTS don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do.
OPERATIONS RESEARCH CONSULTANTS can also measure the correlation of what size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will only identify the elephants.
PSYCHOLOGISTS hunt imaginary elephants.
PSYCHIATRISTS are hunted by imaginary elephants, and prescribe drugs to escape them.
Group 4 Hunters
ASTRONOMERS have never seen an elephant but meet several times a year to debate their existence anyway.
BIOLOGISTS do surveys of the landscape and find two-footed elephants with wings, skinny elephants with stripes, low-slung elephants with one horn, high-strung elephants with two horns...
PRE-MEDS don't hunt elephants, but would learn to do so if it would help them on their MCATs.
CHEMISTS estimate their population in terms of 6 x 10E23 and call them moles.
ENGINEERS hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed elephant.
PARTICLE PHYSICISTS spend their lives smashing rhinoceri into each other and hoping to observe resultant elephant tracks.
PROFESSORS OF PHYSICS hunt large grey animals which they hypothesise might be elephants. They then sit around and wait for a few years for someone to challenge them. If no one does, they publish the results.
NOBEL PRIZE WINNING PROFESSORS OF PHYSICS hunt large grey animals, publish their results, and everyone agrees that they are elephants.
Group 5 Hunters
MATHEMATICIANS hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left.
EXPERIENCED MATHEMATICIANS will attempt to prove the existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate exercise.
PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students.
TOPOLOGISTS catch elephants by drawing a circle, confirming that there are no elephants inside the circle, and inverting the circle – the circle will now contain all the elephants.
STATISTICIANS hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant.
COMPUTER SCIENTISTS hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A:
1. Go to Africa.
2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west.
4. During each traverse pass,
a. Catch each animal seen.
b. Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
c. Stop when a match is detected.
EXPERIENCED COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.
ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMERS prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands and knees.
Group 6 Hunters (and others)
ARTISTS hunt elephants with a telephoto lens; when they're done, you will wonder where the elephant is.
DANCERS hunt elephants by instinct, but it doesn't matter if they never see one – it's all in the feet.
MUSICIANS hunt elephants by sound; actually, they believe that all animals have an elephant hidden inside awaiting the right conductor.
FRESHMEN hunt elephants. But first they stalk out the libraries and read every available piece of literature on elephants.
UPPERCLASSMEN hunt elephants, but remember to do so only on the last day of the season.
etched with acid at 9:58:00 pm
1 Comments:
"The rest accept anything African as a prize-winning elephant."
lawl
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