GARY C. RAMSEYER'S FIRST INTERNET GALLERY OF STATISTICS JOKES BY TOPIC

Two unbiased estimators were sitting in a bar. The first says, "So how do you like married life?" The other replies, "It's pretty good if you don't mind giving up that one degreee of freedom!"

*A big thank you to Bert Bishop for submitting this.

Here is a cute variation of the light bulb joke:

How many statisticians does it take to change a light bulb?

100 - 1 to change the bulb and n-1 to test the replacement!!!

*It looks like a lot of statisticians to handle one light bulb! Thanks to William Tyler for sending me this all the way from Australia.

What do you call a tea party with more than 30 people?

A Z party!!!

*This is a great one from Stacey Ecott. I always thought a Z party was a roomful of slumbering statisticians listening to a keynote address at a convention.

A wise woman once said if all the statisticians in the world would claim all the DEGREES OF FREEDOM then the CEO's of all the corporations would have none. The Chiefs would be forced to go on a merit system tied to valid earnings and upon severence for poor performance would receive a black life preserver instead of a golden parachute.

*Moreover, if the statisticians do take an infinity of degrees of freedom, many tables in textbooks would have only one row and lots of pages would be saved. it sounds like a win-win situation!

An F-Curve was complaining to a Standard Normal z-Curve one day at the shopping mall.

The F-curve said, "I am really envious of you. Here I am with a big bulge on one end and a drain pipe on the other end and you have a perfect symmetrical figure."

The z-Curve replied, "Yes Mr. F but you are a far more prestigious curve in that you are the star in major applications like ANOVA and ANCOVA."

"Well Mr. z another thing that gripes my soul is that you never need any degrees of freedom and I always have to lug around two distinct df-values on my back!"

"Mr. F", the z-Curve responded, "that is very misleading. You know very well that a z-Curve is nothing more than a mature t-Curve with an infinite number of degrees of freedom. Now that is a real load to carry. Take some away from me and I still have an infinity left!"

The F-Curve paused shortly with his mouth wide open, then smiled broadly, and said in a conciliatory voice, "Mr. z, Let's go down to the ice cream shop and I will treat you to an Orange FFreeZZ! I guess statisticians really could not get by without either one of our curves."

*What a nice ending to a story that had such a contentious beginning. Yes, statistics as a discipline could not exist without both the F- and the z-Curves.