A middle aged man suddenly contracted the dreaded disease kurtosis. Not
only was this disease severely debilitating but he had the most virulent strain called
leptokurtosis. A close friend told him his only hope was to see a statistical
physician who specialized in this type of disease. The man was very fortunate
to locate a specialist but he had to travel 800 miles for an appointment.
After a thorough physical exam, the statistical physician exclaimed, "Sir, you are
indeed a lucky person in that the FDA has just approved a new drug called
mesokurtimide for your illness. This drug will bulk you up the middle, smooth out your
stubby tail, and restore your longer range of functioning. In other words, you will feel
"NORMAL" again!"
*This shows how weird statistical humor can get. This is my own joke so go easy on the
feedback!
THE TRUE BELL CURVE - The distribution of SUCCESS
in life in relationship to AGE follows a true bell curve (Modified July 8, 2005):
At age 5 success is not peeing in your pants
At age 10 success is having friends in many many places
At age 16 success is having a driver's license and no moving violations
At age 20 success is having sex but harboring a variety of anxieties about it
At age 35 success is having money to pay cash for a turbocharged Porsche Carrera GT
At age 50 success is having money to pay cash for a turbocharged Porsche Carrera GT
At age 65 success is having sex but harboring a variety of anxieties about it
At age 70 success is having a driver's license and no moving violations
At age 75 success is having friends in many many places
At age 80 success is not peeing in your pants
*Thanks again to my colleague Jazzbo Johnson for suggesting this hilarious joke as it
was related to him by a friend. It is displayed in gold because it represents the
century mark for this Joke Gallery. What a milestone for this site! When I first
conceived the notion of a Statistics Joke Gallery about four years ago there probably
existed less than a handful of such jokes. At the time I thought that if 25 jokes could
be accumulated in five years it would be a huge success. But WOW! We have now reached
100 and the site has become the envy of the statistical profession. Many thanks to all
the contributors and keep the jokes coming.
THE BELL CURVE MEETS THE WELL CURVE
BELL: Fancy meeting you underneath me. I never did understand why someone perverted er,uh INVERTED
me and created you. You aren't worth much!
WELL: You must have had your BELL rung! One of your allegedly famous applications is approximating
a sampling distribution for certain hypothesis tests and the power curves for many of these tests
are well, a WELL CURVE.
BELL: Oh WELL, I forgot that! More critically, WELL, your central tendancy is all messed up. Neither
your mean or median represents you. Only your modes at the extremes characterize you. My curve is
neat and tidy with all those indices identical. That is a real BELL RINGER!
WELL: WELL BELL, you are still living in the 18th and 19th centuries. You don't realize how
distributions are changing. For example, the distribution of wealth is becoming WELL since the middle
class is disappearing and only the extremly wealthy and the impoverished poor are increasing at the
ends. Also, the approval ratings of elected officials is becoming WELL since feelings are polarized
at the extremes with not much in the middle. I could go on and on.
BELL: WELL, you are threatening the limits of my practical range! Maybe, we can talk again under more
NORMAL circumstances.
WELL: BELL you had your MOMENTS but we shall talk again. Meanwhile let us tell all statisticians to
tie each set of our ends together and use the combined distributions as a CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENT!
Good Day!
* Well folks, how many of you have even heard of the WELL CURVE? I was doing some Web surfing
recently and found this interesting article by Jim Pinto printed in the San Diego Mensan, Aug. 2003. Seemingly, Mr. Pinto has coined the
expression WELL CURVE for an inverted Normal Curve and touted its usefulness. Maybe this curve is
becoming so prominant that it should now be included in statistics textbooks. Anyway, this conversation
between the two curves is strictly my own little piece of "humorous" statistical nonsense.
How is a normal probability distribution like a lion?
They both have a MEAN MEW.
*Thanks are in order to Cynthia Gadol, an AP Statistics Teacher at Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy,
for sending me this neat little pun. She claims she heard it years ago from Professor Rolf Bargmann
at the University of Georgia. Cynthia, I have a reply for you: Q. How does a lion differ from a
normal probablity distribution? A. A Lion can not go three standard deviations in pitch above or below its
mean mu!! Oh well, this craziness makes the medicine go down a lot easier.
FOR THOSE WHO KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT STATISTICS
Question: Is the Normal Curve ever a Skewed Ditribution?
Answer: Always!! The Lower Half of the Normal Curve is Negatively Skewed and the Upper Half is Positively Skewed!!
*This is an unfair trick question. A Gestalt psychologist would urge you look at the normal curve as a single entity
and not as two curves treated separately. But if you want to have some fun with your statistics professor ask him this question
and see how he responds. Then after you give him the answer tell him he must begin thinking outside of the box.
He may even give you extra credit!! I may be placed in a box and shipped away after this one.
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