A tale of two jokes (one published, one not)

Image: Sun Records compilation; photo © Chris Light CC BY-SA 4.0

Most scientific papers (and definitely most of mine) are pretty dull.  That is, the results may be important and interesting, but the papers themselves – the text – tend to be dry, colourless, even tedious.  That’s partly because we work so hard to remove authorial voice; it’s partly because we favour complex passive-voice constructions laden with jargon and acronyms; and it’s partly because we avoid humour like the plague.  At least, most of the time.

I say “most of the time” because everyone can point to an example or two of a paper that includes a joke.

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