In my post "Re: PER for physics departments - Misspelling," [Hake
(2004a)] I copied into the APPENDIX a poem attributed to "Humor
Author Unknown" and kindly sent to me by Harvey Gendreau.
ASSESS'er Bill Kadoich has now informed me that the poem was written
by Professor Jerrold Zar of Northern Illinois University, a
biologist, biostatistician [Zar (1999)], and former Dean of the
Graduate School.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Ten years ago, Professor Jerrold Zar . . .
[<http://www.bios.niu.edu/zar/zar.html>]. . . composed a brilliant
poem, which he called "Candidate for a Pullet Surprise". . . . . .
Since then, thousands of readers around the world have chuckled over
the poem and emailed it to their friends. It's also a favourite on
the internet. Google has some 1420 references to it on websites which
have copied the original words, or posted versions amended by various
wits and halfwits. Some have retitled it as "Owed to a Spelling
Checker" or "Spellbound." Many webmasters have added "Unknown
author," or "Anon." One says "Sauce unknown."
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
My apologies for continuing a thread that has now progressed into the
off-topic region. Nevertheless, I think it is relevant to discussion
lists because it demonstrates the deleterious effect of placing
"anonymous" material on the internet without first attempting to
discover proper attribution - the sine qua non of scholarship.
Had I searched Google <http://www.google.com/> for the third
outrageous line "It plane lee marks four my revue" (with the quotes)
of the "anonymous" speel chalker poem, I would have come up with
about 440 hits, many of them propagating the myth of anonymity, but
the fifth <http://www.bios.niu.edu/zar/poem.pdf> (4 kB) defeating it.
REFERENCES
Hake, R.R. 2004a. "Re: PER for physics departments - Misspelling,"
online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0410&L=pod&O=D&P=5942>. Post
of 10 Oct 2004 11:14:19-0700 to AERA-D, ASSESS, Biopi-L, Chemed-L,
Phys-L, PhysLrnR, and POD.
Zar, J. 1999. "Biostatistical Analysis," 4th Edition. Prentice-Hall.
Zar, J. 1994. "Candidate for a Pullet Surprise," Journal of
Irreproducible Results, January/February, p. 13. Reprinted "by
popular demand" in the
Journal of Irreproducible Results, Vol. 45, No. 5/6, 2000, p. 20; online at
<http://www.jir.com/favorites.html>.