Friday 8 June 2007

Jake's Razor

When they told us about Ockham’s razor at school I was slightly annoyed. It doesn’t make sense, why not Ockham’s Theory, or Ockham’s Hypothesis or Premise or even Ockham’s Quite Smart Idea? Why Razor? It’s completely arbitrary. And why aren’t there anymore Razor’s about different things? This has been festering in the back of my mind for twenty two years now so I’ve decided it’s high time to re-dress the balance and propose my own Razor. In fact I’d like to see a lot more people proposing their own Razor’s, no more theory’s or premises there’s too many already, we need more Razor’s now.

So, here’s my Razor “you were just trying to help”. Like Ockham’s Razor it’s not exactly revolutionary or inspiring, but the good thing is it can be used in an immense number of different situations and is probably right most of the time. This Razor can be used on other people, or you can use the Razor on yourself while standing in front of the bathroom mirror talking to yourself. Which then brings in my next Razor “you’re an idiot”, I’m going to try that one now.

Another thing about Ockham’s Razor is that the guy who wrote it was called William, he lived in small town called Ockham in England in the fourteenth century (that’s thirteen something). Shortly afterwards, Walter of Chatton proposed that William had got it all backwards and so he wrote Chatton’s Anti-Razor. The anti-razor didn’t prove to be so popular.

I know what you're thinking now, "you were just trying to help" should be Etterbeek's Razor, not Jake's Razor. You're right and it is very Belgian so why not?

We're going paint-balling now, in two teams from the office, so errmmm...

The End.

Joliet of Etterbeek

6 comments:

MKWM said...

More razors?
Just keep it simple, Sherlock.

zoe said...

go electric.

Soup Waiter said...

I know what KISS means, thank you very much.

Electric Razor's eh? how about; "well, if you pay the bill they'll switch it back on"

"9 people die in the UK every year by sticking their tongues on batteries"

Of course, the Helpdesk's Razor Question "are you sure it's plugged in?"

The Aunt said...

Is that true about the batteries? I suppose it's a fairly obvious explanation for their deaths, so of course it must be the right one.*

Like trees. They MUST be being cut down because they're diseased. It's the simplest explanation.

*We're talking car batteries here, aren't we? Because I've tried a radio battery with my tongue with no ill effects, look, aaaaaaaaargghjffffrrrzzzzllllll....

Soup Waiter said...

It's true about the batteries but they are radio batteries. Some people have a freak reaction.

I imagine the toll for car batteries is much higher

Glamourpuss said...

I gave up with Razors, now I use Puss's Epilator - it lasts much longer but can smart a bit a times.

Puss