May 09, 2004

Great scientist joke

I spent this morning at a retirement party for Lila and Henry Gleitman. Or Gleitmen, as Paul Rozin suggested in his after-brunch remarks. Or was it John Trueswell who suggested it? There were six after-brunch speakers. Anyhow, for the occasion Lila was wearing a stylish gray T-shirt created some time ago by Merrill Garrett, immortalizing an overheard conversation:

[on the front]    H. Gleitman:  Most great scientists are not great men.

[on the back]   L. Gleitman:  Yeah. For instance, I'm not a great man.

Posted by Mark Liberman at May 9, 2004 07:07 PM