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

A musician drove his statistician friend to a symphony concert one evening in his brand new mid-sized Chevy. When they arrived at the hall, all the parking spots were taken except one in a remote, dark corner of the lot. The musician quickly maneuvered his mid-sized Chevy into the space and they jumped out and walked toward the hall. They had only taken about ten steps when the musician suddenly realized he had lost his car key. The statistician was unconcerned because he knew the key had to be within one standard deviation of the car. They both retraced their steps and began searching the shadowed ground close to the driver's door. After groping on his hands and knees for about a minute, the musician bounced to his feet and bolted several hundred yards toward a large street light near the back of the concert hall. He quickly got down on all fours and resumed his search in the brightly lit area. The statistician remained by the car dumbfounded knowing that the musician had absolutely zero probablity of finding the key under the street light.

Finally, after fifteen minutes,the statistician's keen sense of logic got the best of him. He walked across the lot to the musician and asked, "Why in the world are you looking for your key under the street light? You lost it back in the far corner of the lot by your car!"

The musician in his rumpled and stained suit slowly got to his feet and muttered angrily, "I KNOW, BUT THE LIGHT IS MUCH BETTER OVER HERE!!"

*Thanks to the late Professor Robert Rumery for telling me a variation of this story. If you are a musician, the lesson of this tale is: IF YOU GO MORE THAN THREE STANDARD DEVIATIONS FROM MIDDLE C YOU WILL NEVER FIND THE RIGHT KEY!

What did the Box Plot say to the outlier?

"Don't you dare get close to my whisker!!"

*I had to dig very deep in the BOX to come up with this one.

One day the variance and the standard deviation were engaged in a heated argument over which was the better measure of variability.

The standard deviation shouted at the variance, "You are useless because you don't even relate to the original score scale."

The variance glared back and yelled, " Oh yeah! You are totally worthless because you are far too radical."

Just then the mean deviation stepped between the two indices and pushed them both back. In a proud voice the mean deviation proclaimed,"You are both wrong! I am ABSOLUTELY the best measure of variability since both of you would be worth ZERO if you didn't square your deviations!!!!"

*OK this may not bring down the house with laughter. I still have a place in my heart for the antiquated mean deviation because of its intuitive nature. I believe students can see a rationale for both S and S² if MD is introduced first.

How many tents will a campground hold?

Ten tenths since that adds up to a whole!!

*Sorry I lost the attribution on this one. However, you may wonder what this has to do with statistics. A possible incorrect answer to this question would be "one tenth (tent)" since in a one-way analysis of covariance with one covariate, the pooled within groups regression coefficient is not obtained by adding the seperate regression coefficients within each group but rather by dividing the pooled numerators of each of the within group coefficients by the pooled denominators of each of the within group coefficients. In our example, using regression-type pooling, 1/10 + 1/10 + 1/10 +... for ten terms = 10/100 or 1/10 but that is absurd! Now isn't that special! I am sure you followed me. Is it any wonder that students have trouble with statistics when they are presented with esoteric "word salad" like the above. Please don't take my ramblings seriously. I am only having FUN!!!

Why do most statistics professors at Case Western Reserve University have a clean record, but a few get put in prison for life?

There is an uncommon level of VARIANTS in the area!

*Thanks go out to John Newbrough, a statistics student at Case Western Reserve, for relating this demographic oddity for the Gallery. This has to imply that Western Reserve is Number One in the the respect shown for the discipline!

My pain and confusion covary
At levels both looming and scary
To pass this exam
I'll be needing some scam -
Oh statistics! I should have been wary.

*Thanks Deborah Apthorpe from down under at Macquarie Univrsity in Sydney, Australia for sending me this cute little limerick. If this Joke Gallery can display Knock! Knock! jokes, we certainly can make room for a few statistical limericks. Debby suggests that instructors of statistics have their students write these competitively in class as a learning device. Great Idea!