Elephants

[Michael Bush]

MATHEMATICIANS hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left.

EXPERIENCED MATHEMATICIANS will attempt to prove the existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate exercise.

PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students.

COMPUTER SCIENTISTS hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A:
Go to Africa.
Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west.
During each traverse pass,
  Catch each animal seen.
  Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
  Stop when a match is detected.

EXPERIENCED COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.

ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMERS prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands and knees.

HARDWARE ENGINEERS hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed elephant.

ECONOMISTS don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves.

STATISTICIANS hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant.

CONSULTANTS don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do.

OPERATIONS RESEARCH CONSULTANTS can also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will only identify the elephants.

POLITICIANS don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them.

LAWYERS don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around arguing about who owns the droppings.

SOFTWARE LAWYERS will claim that they own an entire herd based on the look and feel of one dropping.

VICE PRESIDENTS OF ENGINEERING, RESEARCH, AND DEVELOPMENT try hard to hunt elephants, but their staffs are designed to prevent it. When the vice president does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try to ensure that all possible elephants are completely prehunted before the vice president sees them. If the vice president does happen to see a elephant, the staff will:
1) compliment the vice president's keen eyesight and
2) enlarge itself to prevent any recurrence.

SENIOR MANAGERS set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the assumption that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices.

QUALITY ASSURANCE INSPECTORS ignore the elephants and look for mistakes the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.

SALES PEOPLE don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens.

SOFTWARE SALES PEOPLE ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an elephant.

HARDWARE SALES PEOPLE catch rabbits, paint them gray, and sell them as desktop elephants.

What does Tarzan say when he sees a herd of elephants in the distance?  "Look, a herd of elephants in the distance"

What does Tarzan say when he sees a herd of elephants with sunglasses?  Nothing. He doesn't recognize them.

What does Tarzan say when he sees a herd of giraffes in the distance?  "Haha! You fooled me once with those disguises, but not this time!"

What is the difference between en elephant and a plum?  An elephant is grey.

What does Jane say when she sees a herd of elephants in the distance?  "Look! A herd of plums in the distance" (Jane is color blind)

How do you get four elephants into a VW?  Two in the front, two in the back.

What game do four elephants in a VW play?  Squash

What did the fifth elephant in the VW discover?  The sun roof.

If elephants didn't exist, you couldn't invent one.

When does an elephant look like a baby bunny? When she's wearing a baby bunny suit.

How can you tell if there are three elephants in the bathtub with you? You count them.

What do you get if you drop an elephant on a baby butterfly? A splatterpillar.

Why are elephants large, gray, and wrinkled? If they were small, round, and white, they'd be aspirins.

Which elephants live in the Arctic? Cold ones.

What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence? Time to get a new fence.

Why did the elephant change his socks? Because they were dirty.

Why do elephants wear tennies? Because the ninies are too small and the elevenies are too big.

"What do you call an elephant that doesn't matter? An irrelephant."

What do you give a seasick elephant?  Lots of room.

Where do elephants with skincare problems go?  Pachydermatologists.