What They Write: Of great theoretical importance
What They Mean: I find it kind of interesting
What They Write: Of great practical importance
What They Mean: I can get some mileage out of it
What They Write: It has not been possible to provide definitive
answers
What They Mean: The experiment was negative, but at least I can
publish the data somewhere
What They Write: The W-Pb system was chosen as expecially suitable
to show the predicted behavior.
What They Mean: The fellow in the next lab had some already made
up.
What They Write: High purity, Very High Purity, Extremely High
purity, Super Purity, or Spectroscopically purity...
What They Mean: Composition Unknown except for the exaggerated
claims of the supplier.
What They Write: A fiducial reference line...
What They Mean: A scratch
What They Write: 3 of the samples were chosen for detailed study.
What They Mean: The others didn't make sense, so we ignored them
What They Write: The 4th sample was not studied
What They Mean: I dropped it on the floor
What They Write: The 4th determination may not be significant
What They Mean: I dropped it on the floor, but scooped most of it
up
What They Write: Handled with extreme care during the experiments
What They Mean: This wasn't dropped on the floor.
What They Write: The significance of these results is unclear
What They Mean: Look at the pretty artifact
What They Write: Typical results are shown.
What They Mean: The best results are shown.
What They Write: Although some detail has been lost in
reproduction, it is clear from the original micrograph that...
What They Mean: It is impossible to tell from the micrograph.
What They Write: Presumably at longer times...
What They Mean: I didn't take the time to find out.
What They Write: The agreement with the predicted curve is
excellent, good, satisfactory, fair or as good as can be
expected...
What They Mean: Fair, poor, doubtful, imaginary or non-existent,
repectably.
What They Write: Correct within an order of magnitude
What They Mean: Wrong
What They Write: Much additional work will be required
What They Mean: This paper is not very good, but neither are all
the others in this miserable field
What They Write: These investigations proved highly rewarding
What They Mean: My grant is going to be renewed
What They Write: These results will be reported at a later date.
What They Mean: I might get around to this sometime.
What They Write: The most reliable values are those of Jones.
What They Mean: He was a student of mine.
What They Write: It is suggested/believed that...
What They Mean: I think that...
What They Write: It is generally believed that...
What They Mean: A couple of other guys think so too
What They Write: It might be argued that
What They Mean: I have such a good answer for that objection that
I shall now raise it
What They Write: It is clear that much additional work will be
required before a complete understanding...
What They Mean: I don't understand it.
What They Write: Unfortunately, a quantitative theory to account
for these effects has not been formulated...
What They Mean: Neither does anybody else!
What They Write: Correct within an order of magnitude...
What They Mean: Wrong
What They Write: It is to be hoped that this work will stimulate
further work in this field...
What They Mean: This paper isn't very good but neither are any of
the others on this miserable subject.
What They Write: I thank X for assistance with the experiments and
Y for useful discussions on the interpretation of the data.
What They Mean: X did the experiment and Y explained it to me.
What They Write: It is not unreasonable to assume
What They Mean: If you believe this, you'll believe anything