Good Science Writing

Even more entries in the Devil’s Dictionary: development, inebriation, perianth, and tepal.

See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.

all entries in the Devil’s Dictionary copyright 2018 by Russ Hodge

 

development  a process by which complex organisms arise from a single cell (often a fertilized egg), then go through a brief, chaotic phase as multicellular organisms before degenerating. This requires a great deal of energy and places an enormous burden on the entire ecosphere, which must expend fantastic resources to give such organisms something to eat. Originally multicellularity arose when a progenitor’s offspring were too lazy to leave home, get jobs and carry out fruitful, independent lives. Instead they remained stuck together in a sort of commune or collective, which happened for several reasons: they shared a common religious or political ideology, or were simply too lazy to learn to fend for themselves and developed a pathological co-dependency on each other. Or they were simply too sticky to detach themselves. Ultimately all of these experiments fail because the group becomes too large to manage, descends into anarchy, and finally falls apart, leaving single cells again. At that point you have to wonder whether it is worth it, if the whole point is simply to end up as food for bacteria and worms.

inebriation  a scale used by medical professionals to estimate the degree of severity of a case of alcohol poisoning in a patient. The lowest end of the scale is represented by the teetotaller, a person who drinks uniquely tea, usually a green, murky type that tastes like it has been aged in a brackish swamp somewhere. There follows sobriety, a temporary situation in which alcohol is no longer measurable in the bloodstream, usually attained after an extended stay in a rehabilitation clinic. Further points along the scale, in temporal order, are buzzed, rowdy, obnoxious, hammered, incoherent, blackout, dead to the world, death warmed over, hung-over, powerfully thirsty, andhair-of-the-dog. At that point the cycle repeats itself. If the poison of choice is tequila, some steps are very short-lived or skipped over entirely.

perianth  the non-reproductive part of a flower; generally the ugly parts which resemble weeds, or everything that is left when the petals fall off.

tepal  a part of a plant which arises when it misspells a petal.

 

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Today’s entries in the Devil’s Dictionary include fruitcake, novelty, polymery, sepal, shrub and whorl.

See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.

all entries in the Devil’s Dictionary copyright 2018 by Russ Hodge

fruitcake  the product of a complex chemical experiment in which flour is taken in its raw, inedible form and combined with various other ingredients, some of which originally hung from trees in tropical climates, then subjected to intense heat until they reach a solidified form that is practically inedible unless you are willing to risk some teeth. A person probably wouldn’t die after eating some, but it has rarely been tried; only anecdotal evidence exists in the literature. The baked form resembles an adobe brick and can be used for most of the same purposes. The other main use is purely ritualistic and plays a role in Christmas festivities. A family bakes some, wraps them up as presents, and gives them to the neighbors. They, in turn, give their own version of fruitcake as form of revenge. Neither will eat the object, but you can’t throw it away – they might notice it in your garbage can. People do check what their neighbors are throwing away after the holidays. The solution is to archive it in the deep freeze, with a label indicating the year. We have a fruitcake in our freezer from the year 1897.

novelty  a scale used to indicate the degree of plagiarism or copyright infringement contained in a project or paper. “High novelty” indicates that a term, experiment or concept has been modified enough to evade most legal actions. A “low degree of novelty” is usually an indication that the author or inventor should be heavily insured against claims by others.

polymery  a state of intoxication in a parrot.

sepal  a sort of umbrella growing over the bud of a flower, to protect it from hailstorms and hide its sexual organs from the wrong pollinators.

shrub  a derogatory term used by trees to refer to plants that are unnaturally stunted, haven’t fulfilled their potential, or are somehow disappointing overall.

 whorl a region within a person’s hair which is shaped like a tiny hurricane, formed through similar physical forces. In those born in the Northern Hemisphere, whorls generally form in a clockwise direction, while in the Southern Hemisphere the structure flows in a counter-clockwise direction, viewed from above. Usually this region is located on the back side of the head, although there have been well-documented cases of its appearance in other places, such as between the eyebrows. Contrary to popular belief, one cannot retrain a whorl to grow in the opposite direction by sticking a finger into it and twirling it in the opposite direction, or with the aid of some mechanical device such as an electric mixer, although a few recent studies suggest that this can be achieved temporarily if the device rotates at a speed above 1000 rpm.

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Finally new entries in the Devil’s Dictionary: today including cingulation, fat, fat index, geotonus, faunal region, feedback, habituation, polymer, and xylophagy.

See the complete Devil’s Dictionary of Scientific Words and Phrases here.

all entries in the Devil’s Dictionary copyright 2018 by Russ Hodge

cingulation the process of squeezing something into a form that is demonstrably too small for it, such as a pair of jeans or a girdle.

fat an acronym for the expression full of adipose tissue.

fat index a list of overweight people maintained by government agencies and insurance companies. In recent years this information is collected electronically by scales, chairs, and other devices and automatically forwarded to the appropriate authority via the Internet.

geotonus the technical term for falling flat on one’s face. Scientists believe that in humans, this behavior represents an evolutionary adaptation, as the optimal arrangement for the body’s organs for the metabolism of high quantities of alcohol.

faunal region any surface of a human body which offers a favorable climate for plant life, such as the fungi that infest feet, seeds that sprout from belly buttons, mold on the underside of wigs, or the numerous species that grow from ear wax. The existence of faunal regions motivated the tradition of throwing grains of rice on a bride and groom, in hopes that some of it would take root and give the couple a portable source of nutrition. The evolution of higher cognitive processes in modern humans was accompanied by the development of a sense of shame and modesty and the invention of clothing. At that point plant life had a harder time finding habitable niches, so humans began adorning their apparel with artificial fauna such as plastic carnations, entire fruit orchards growing from the hat of the Queen, and vegetable sauces ornamenting the aprons worn by butchers and cooks named Luigi.

feedback a spontaneous reflex in response to being fed something you have no desire to eat, which often occurs after someone says, “Close your eyes and taste this.” In adults the reflex typically involves extracting the material from the mouth with a hand and cramming it into the mouth (or some other available orifice) of the offender. Young infants who do not have complete mastery of their hands usually just spit offensive substances back along the line of trajectory from which it arrived. When an adult repeats this process several times successively, with the same results, the situation is called a feedback loop. A feedback mechanism is a robotic apparatus to simulate the above.

habituation an intermediary stage in the development of a human relationship. It begins directly after the period of attraction and lasts until the onset of death by boredom.

polymer the designation for a collection of objects that experience some sort of attraction for each other, become attached, and remain that way until being physically separated – by an enzyme, a hacksaw, a pry-bar, or various types of legal proceedings. Examples of polymers include amino acids, relatives who show up for the holidays, children and babysitters, people handcuffed to each other, members of a chain gang, professors and students, scientists and administrators, and pets and owners.

 xylophagy the process of digesting a xylophone.

 

 

If you liked the Devil’s Dictionary, you’ll probably also enjoy:

Searching for Oslo: a non-hypothesis-driven approach

On the publication of “Remote sensing” by the magazine Occulto