Humor
Denning is an inveterate punster who frequently uses humor to get points across. Examples:
- April Fool special section (when he was editor), ACM Communications (April 1984).
- On Active and Passive Writing, a treatise exhorting students to write in the active voice.
- A Tale of Two Islands. Fable about a controversy in queueing theory over operational analysis. First published in 1991. Contained as an appendix to a 2006 overview of operational analysis
Read more about this topic: Peter J. Denning
Famous quotes containing the word humor:
“Every American, to the last man, lays claim to a “sense” of humor and guards it as his most significant spiritual trait, yet rejects humor as a contaminating element wherever found. America is a nation of comics and comedians; nevertheless, humor has no stature and is accepted only after the death of the perpetrator.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“The comic is the perception of the opposite; humor is the feeling of it.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“Carlyle’s humor is vigorous and titanic, and has more sense in it than the sober philosophy of many another. It is not to be disposed of by laughter and smiles merely; it gets to be too serious for that: only they may laugh who are not hit by it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)